Flight of the Albatross
by Abalisk
Summary: Join Ace and the Spades Pirates as they attempt to get away with one last heist before heading into the Grand Li-who is this?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** My thanks go to Tsumi Yuki and Lang Noi, thank you both for inspiring this story.

* * *

Flight of the Albatross

By: Abalisk

Chapter 1: Lady of Ash

 _Day broke and the air was stifled with a choking smog, the final vestiges of a raging inferno. Distant snaps and crackles let those who lingered know that the coals still burned hot despite the waning storm, forcing them to proceed through the smouldering rubble with caution. Black smoke rose from the ruins, curling end over end like the coupling of serpents, sectioning off the red hues of the brightening sky._

 _She sat kneeling on the cold ground, knees crunched into scattered debris. At a glance it might have looked like she was praying, her head bowed to her chest and arms at her side, but closer inspection told a different tale. The way her bomber jacket was torn along the sleeves and the crimson stains splattered like paint across the ground made for a macabre picture._

 _Brown hair, powdered grey from the falling ash, shifted with a stray wind to reveal a worn face, grey with pain. Dark circles sitting heavy beneath her hazel eyes accentuated her haunted look. Dead. But still clinging to the realm of the living._

 _This was it._

 _The resistance was no more._

 _She failed..._

 _A shadow fell across the ground, encompassing her body like a human shaped eclipse. Dry, like the crackling of leaves, a laugh wormed its way up his throat, devoid of humor. "Is it all you've ever wanted?" he rasped, mocking and cruel, his shadow swallowing her much smaller form, "Is this the precious future you asked for?"_

 _No answer greeted his question, as was expected. It was the same. It always was._

" _Hey…" she ventured instead, subdued. Familiarity on her breath. She didn't react when a rough hand wrenched her head back by her hair and she was blinded by the sun cresting the horizon._

 _A knife sat poised by her throat, the silvery steel kissing her skin. Welcoming her like an old friend. A lover._

 _He intended to make this personal. Not that it was anything new. Things had been personal from the start._

 _A hiss of dissent rippled through the gathering crowd and she gave a feral grin in response. A smile that made a scowl twist upon his face. Once again, she would have the last laugh. Her flesh split in twain as the blade pressed in, she could feel the minute quivers of the hand that wielded it. As it always did._

 _So hesitant._

 _But this dance of theirs could not go on. The courtship of eagles finished._

" _Do you believe in destiny?" she whispered, her eyes almost glowing orange with the dawn._

xXx

Ace gasped, his knee smacking against the table as he jerked awake, making the plates stacked around him rattle ominously. Cursing under his breath, he rubbed at the sore limb, his brain still in a confused daze. _What in the hell was that?_

It took him several moments to organize his thoughts enough to recognize his location, the remnants of the dream still clinging to his mind like a persistent squid. He was in a restaurant, a posh, high-end joint in the Upper Terrace, with a name he couldn't pronounce and where the meals _definitely_ cost more than the average man could afford.

The cold, if extravagant, decoration was a stark contrast to what he was used to in the warm, homey taverns he normally frequented. To anyone who knew him, he would have seemed like a fish out of water.

And perhaps he was more obvious than that, the other patrons and even staff of the restaurant stopped to stare, muttering conversation ceasing into a still hush. Appearing unperturbed, Ace grinned and resumed eating, making loud smacking noises to fill the silence, ravenously plowing through the rice he'd just been face-planted in mere moments ago. A few more disgusted looks turned his way, but it didn't take long before the chatter resumed again, several snippets of conversation filtering through the din:

"Someone didn't teach that boy proper manners."

"How uncouth."

"That suit was last week's design."

Ace ignored the attention, making certain to not pause let it show that he was embarrassed by the interruption. He wasn't going to let these stuck up rich folk get a leg up on him.

He didn't give a damn what they thought, despite the slight burning of his cheeks

Instead, his mind turned to address the more curious issue: 'the dream'. _What in the Blue Seas was that anyway?_ he wondered, chewing the remains of his meal and idly scratching the back of his head, the black locks mussing into a nest of curls, _And that girl… I don't think I've ever seen her before…?_

Twirling the fork in his hand, Ace hummed to himself with a furrowed brow, deeply disturbed. He had vivid dreams before, though usually they were either something trivial or a replayed memory. However, this one felt like it held some sort of significance and he was damn certain he'd never seen that person before, but the image was too detailed to be a stranger. He wasn't a terribly superstitious person so Ace was a bit hesitant to believe that it was a vision.

 _Hah._

The day he actually believed he had prophetic dreams would be the day he'd eat his own boots; the very notion was absolutely absurd. He snorted derisively.

"Are you okay, mister?" a voice squeaked.

Blinking, Ace scrubbed a hand over his face to dislodge several flecks of rice and turned his head to see who addressed him. A waitress stood by, nervously clenching and unclenching her fingers around the circular tray in her hand. Her eyes were a watery blue and she had long wavy blond hair that framed a heart shaped face. _She's cute,_ he noted absently, but didn't voice it aloud, instead smiling with boyish charm around his full mouth. "I'm just fine miss, nothing to worry about here."

"But…" she trailed off, giving probably what she thought was a surreptitious glance to his precarious pile of plates and a frowning mustachioed man that stood at a not-so-discreet distance. Probably the manager.

 _Perfect_.

"You've been asleep for nearly two hours now," she continued, unaware of his mischievous glances around the room, his dark eyes taking in the exits, "We were worried when you just… fell over, sir."

"Oh yeah," he drawled amiably. His expression lit up when he saw a contingent of new customers waiting to be seated. _That'll work._ Turning back to the waitress, he swallowed the final mouthful and picked at his teeth with a fingernail, leaning back in his seat to balance on two legs. "That happens sometimes."

Belatedly, he aborted the motion to adjust his hat and instead ran his fingers through his decidedly hatless hair, remembering at the last moment that his favorite headwear had been left behind on his ship.

He felt a little naked without it.

"I… uhm—I see," she faltered, probably thrown off by his flippant demeanor, watching fascinated as he stabilized the chair expertly with his shoe held under the lip of the table.

He wasn't too surprised, it was a very real possibility that she hadn't dealt with a laid-back customer like him before, the usual crowd likely didn't chat up the waitstaff. _Ever._

He almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

 _This is going to be fun._

"And there's also the matter of your bill—"

Ace slammed his boot against the table with enough force that the plates swayed, effectively cutting the woman off mid-sentence. The waitress leapt up to brace the nearest stack with a wail of alarm while the manager did the same for the other side.

As for Ace, he simply smirked and allowed his chair to fall to the floor where he rolled over his shoulder and promptly heel-turn bolted for the door.

"Thanks for the delicious meal!" he cheerfully hollered, bulldozing through a crowd of customers at the entrance.

No one had the frame of mind to stop his escape until he was already out the posh restaurant and down the street, too preoccupied with their shock that he even _dared_. He cackled when calls of "stop that man" echoed behind him, the sound glorious to his ears.

"Dine 'N Dash" was his specialty after all. A nice callback to the good days of his childhood.

Clean roads and vaulted architecture swept by as he sprinted, ducking around pedestrians and leaping over fences, his winding path ever steadily taking him downhill.

The city of Paramour, the supposed "Pearl of East Blue," was an icon of power over the lower class. Nobles ruled its streets, the port itself funded by the pocket lining of the rich and powerful, with the local Marines acting as their eternal doormat. Three terraced walls separated the rich from the poor, the richest nobles living at the highest point of the island while the poorest peasants lived in shacks along the water's edge.

People came from all over the world to sample its fine cuisine and legendary entertainment, the Ivory Palace itself at the very pinnacle of the island hosting parties almost every evening. An event that was well known to attract even a Tenryūbito or two on occasion.

It was also a common affair for the nobles to exchange secrets and auction slaves or other valuables.

As such, Paramour, just as its name suggested, was the secret lover. The concubine. The mistress of the sophisticated world. A shining example of the World Government's blind eye and dirty secrets.

And a fine place for a challenging heist.

As he ground to a halt along one of the terrace walls, Ace gave a contented sigh upon unbuttoning his stifling vest, happy to finally be free of the damn thing. The restaurant wouldn't have let him in if he dressed in his normal voyaging attire, so he had to compromise.

Stealing the monkey suit hadn't been a problem; the owner made himself a target when he struck a small girl who was only trying to make a living by selling roses. Ace was all too happy to give the man a lesson of pain in the nearest alley, swiping the clothes and wallet to boot.

The little girl practically beamed when he used that money to buy her entire stock of flowers.

Unfortunately, the cut of the suit was sewn for someone with a much slimmer ribcage than his own, so it'd been a bit tight. It took all of his patience to not just rip the damn thing apart while eating, as every time he swallowed a mouthful the stitching would itch something fierce. He much preferred the feel of the ocean breeze on his skin over fine threads any day.

 _Sabo would agree with me…_ he mused, sighing as the wind threaded invisible fingers through his hair, before shaking his head, _Agh, don't think about that._

His brother was long gone from this world. He could no longer be harmed by its negligence and cruelty. Still, it didn't keep Ace from missing him dearly.

Though they hadn't been related by blood, the trials they had both gone through as children ensured they were family nonetheless.

Stretching his arms above his head, Ace groaned, his smile bittersweet as he gazed at the setting sun, the orange light playing off the waves for as far as the eye could see. _I have to admit, even if the people who built this place are rotten to the core,_ that _is still one gorgeous view._ He sighed again, taking in the various odors in the air. _Wish you could have been here to see it, Sabo._

The scuffing of boot heels at his side didn't break him out of his staring contest with the sky, he knew who it was without looking. A mischievous smirk wormed its way across his lips before Ace spoke, "All ready, eh?"

"Aye, Captain," the gruff drawl of his first mate, Tex, confirmed. Ace heard the man shift for a moment before he spit, the indignant sounds of someone below establishing that the other man hit his mark. "The boys are all waiting in the wings and I've got your letter right here," he continued, the rustling of papers following that statement making Ace finally break from the horizon and glance over.

A single paper wafted stiffly in the slight breeze and Ace deftly swiped the sheet from Tex's waiting fingers. The lettering was embossed into the card, the curling, flowery script difficult to read but appeared to be of professional make. Ace gave a low whistle. "Looks pretty damn genuine."

Tex huffed a laugh. "Damn well better be genuine. Beat the shit out of a guy that looks almost like you to get that."

Ace's brow rose. " _'Almost?'_ "

"Well... when you put the mask on the resemblance is uncanny," was the chortled reply. Tex adjusted his white cowboy hat and grinned beneath the rim, proffering the flamboyant accessory with a look of amusement. "Careful, it might suit you."

Snorting, Ace rolled his eyes when he took in what looked like it was supposed to be a raven mask, the adornment would cover nearly the entirety of his face if he put it on. "Geez, was the only resemblance my _hair?_ "

Tex smirked.

"Don't laugh at me when I put this stupid thing on," Ace warned, running a hand through his bangs to slick them back, before fitting the mask over his face.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Captain."

While Ace busied himself with tying the mask's silk cords securely, Tex helped him rebutton his suit, smoothing out any wrinkles that might have appeared during his previous escapade. Ace scowled—though the mask obscured most of it—while Tex finished tightening his tie. "I feel like an idiot. Probably look like one too."

"I don't try to understand the fashion sense of nobles, Captain." Tex replied, slapping away some stray crumbs off the floral pink waistcoat, before doing the same to the tails of black jacket. "Though to be fair, you could have chosen someone else's clothes."

Ace shrugged, grimacing when the shoulder seams creaked. "Probably… this guy just made it easy. Oh!" He snapped his fingers, remembering the event that occurred earlier that day. "That reminds me, there's going to be a delivery of flowers to the _Wild Card_."

Tex hesitated, then glanced up at the other man. "What did you do…?"

Frowning, Ace tilted his head in a very bird-like manner. Considering the kind of mask currently sitting on his face, it was oddly appropriate. "Why do you always assume everything I do ends in something bad?"

"Your record is uncanny," was the flat response, Tex's gaze was moderately unimpressed as he scratched at the stubble on his chin, "Remember the windmill in Yardwick?"

"Oh come on, _that_ wasn't even my fault—"

"And the giant clam in Arborforth?"

"...Okay, I'll admit to that one—"

"Or how about the time we were in Hartholme and the tavern waitress—"

"Alright!" Ace interrupted, frantically cutting off the man, who had the largest shit-eating grin on his face. He definitely didn't need to be reminded of _that_ disaster. "I get your point… Look, it's nothing totally crazy this time, I promise."

"Best hope so. We want tonight to go off without a hitch, right?" Tex murmured seriously, though his brown eyes still twinkled with good humor. The man was older than Ace by a few years and had sailed the seas with several crews long before joining up as the Spade Pirates' first mate—though at the time they had no official name. In a roundabout way, he had taken the younger man under his wing, showing him the ropes on how to be a true ship captain and not just the childhood fantasy of a seagoing rover searching for adventure.

Sure, there was a lot of adventure to be had, but it was important that the captain at least had a basic understanding of how a ship operated.

Luckily, Ace ate up all that knowledge just as readily as he would if a full buffet was spread before him.

 _Still acts like a kid though._ Tex thought, giving a chuckle when his captain shifted nervously from foot to foot. He wouldn't be surprised if the suit was pinching somewhere, the boy put on muscle faster than his diet should allow. "You'll want to look confident now, don't want to break your cover."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Ace grumbled, but took a deep breath anyway, rolling back his shoulders to get rid of his usual slouch, "My freckles aren't showing through are they?"

Leaning in, Tex thoughtfully hummed as he veered back and forth, checking the mask's eye holes for any of the younger man's telltale speckles. A dark eye peered at him speculatively as he investigated. "Doesn't look like it," Tex informed, stepping away to give the other man space, "The mask seems to fit pretty tight to your face, and the other guy had the same eye color as you, too. They'd have to rip the damn thing off to identify you properly."

A relieved sigh sounded before Ace perked up cheerfully. "So, what poor unfortunate asshole have I been stuck impersonating tonight?"

"Hammerfart Gaspard," said Tex with model seriousness.

A high-pitched whine split from between Ace's lips before he burst into roaring laughter, doubling over with the force of his mirth. He would have toppled headfirst into a nearby bush if Tex hadn't been fast enough to reel him back into an upright position with a steadying hand. Several hiccups escaped the man in an attempt to catch his breath, only for him to break down once again into hearty guffaws. Tex, ever patient, just thumped his captain on the back, waiting for the moment when he would finally calm down enough to continue.

And wait he did, for at least another minute. Ace hardily helped matters by muttering the name between chuckles, only to fall into further hysterics.

Finally, after enough chortling and shoulder shaking delirium, Ace straightened up and breathed deeply. "Alright, that was a really good laugh." He chuckled again, briefly this time before turning his attention back to his first mate. "Man, I don't think you realized how much I needed that... Now seriously, what's the guy's name?"

Tex's expression never wavered from its stoicism.

Ace choked on his own spit. " _No…_ "

"Yep."

Further sputtering sounds of dismay echoed from within the mask. "And I'm expected to introduce myself like that," Ace stated, appalled.

A nod. "Of course."

"That's not fair! That's _so_ not fair," Ace argued, the black feathers crowning his head waving back and forth as he shook his head, "That name's funny. It will never _not_ be funny!"

"I'd suggest you get practicing then, Captain."

xXx

In the dungeons of the Ivory Palace, on the final floor where not even the light of day could reach, a woman's voice whispered sweetly:

"Hush, little baby, don't say a word. Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird…"

Choking gasps and the clink of metal sounded within the last cell in the block. Grunts and curses followed the struggle, the voices within breathing heavily as they wrestled.

A woman snapped her leg out, grinding the heel of her foot into the side of the man's knee, the bone crunching under the impact. He would have screamed but the thick chain wrapped around his throat cut off any meaningful shouts.

The twisted remains of a snail sat crushed and oozing nearby.

"And if that Mockingbird don't sing," she hissed, fingers knotted tightly around the metal links, arms straining and quivering as the man beneath her struggled against the chains. Her grip had to be like iron, otherwise the pin would be released in the collar and she wasn't going to have any of that. She liked her limbs unexploded, thank-you-very-much. "Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring."

Leith grunted when a stray flailing kick caught her along the ribs, but she persisted in her efforts, whispering sweet nothings in her victim's ear. She needed him quiet and she needed that damned key on his belt.

"And if that diamond ring turns... brass…?" she paused growling, thinking for a moment, "Brass... Brass—what comes after that? 'Kick your ass?' … No, that can't be right, this is a god damned childrens' song."

She didn't dare avert her gaze to double check that her salvation was near like her paranoid mind insisted. That key wasn't going anywhere. No. The guard at her mercy needed her full attention, she couldn't waver in case he shifted unexpectedly and got the upper hand.

Like last time.

"Damn it, well _whatever_ , it's not like that song is all that important to remember," she grumbled, tightening her hold after one particularly violent twist.

Her back stung with repeated blows, but she was far enough forward to avoid most of the damage or broken ribs. She'd have bruises at the very least, but that was trivial in comparison to her multiple "punishments" in the previous months.

 _Or was it years? Can't remember… How long has it been?_

The guard twitched sporadically, refocusing Leith's attention, forcing her to buckled down and put as much force as possible into strangling the man. He was almost finished, she just needed to add the final touches and she would be free.

Something cracked.

Leith didn't relax when he finally went limp, she kept at it, her fingers slick with blood from the pressure lacerations from holding the chains so tight. The muscles in her arms screamed for her to be finished, to finally let go.

All was silent.

She hadn't realized she was holding her breath.

Gasping, Leith released her victim, the guard's head falling to the floor with a loud clap. She eased shaking fingers down to his throat, checking his pulse to make sure she'd done enough. When she didn't feel anything, she clamped the entirety of her hand on his neck, checking for any minute flutterings.

Nothing.

Not allowing herself the moment of reprieve her body demanded, she tackled the key ring around the man's waistband with fumbling fingers, her bloodied hands leaving crimson smears on the gilded metal. She couldn't allow this moment to slip by, for tonight was the night she would be put on the auction block.

And like _hell_ she was going to stick around for that.

The click of the shackles opening sounded like the sweetest symphony to her ears and she rolled her wrists and neck experimentally, testing the feeling of having less weight on her body. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she threw out a couple of experimental punches, checking her reflexes and trying to remember the lessons from her kick-boxing instructor.

It would do well enough, for now.

She stripped the corpse, discarding her dubiously stained garments in favor of the guard's considerably cleaner clothes. They smelled heavenly in comparison to everything else around her and she unashamedly took a deep whiff of the collar. The strong odor of sweat and old cologne was a stark contrast to her current rancid scent. The pants and boots were a no-go. Neither of those fit her properly and she wasn't going to suffer trying to run in loose fitting pants or clown shoes just for a bid for modesty, there was no time for such silly notions.

 _Guess that answers the question of boxers or briefs,_ she mused in wry humor, slipping on the tight boxers in lieu of her forgoing the pants. _At least they fit._

Leith gave the shackles a considering look for a moment before locking and picking them up again, shoving the cursed things within the white jacket's inner pocket. _These might come in handy,_ she reasoned.

Dragging the body to the corner of the cell, Leith draped her old clothes over the torso and hid the unused articles under the meager bedding they'd provided. She curled the legs up to his chest, making it appear as if it was just a normal sleeping prisoner. She was glad the dead man at least had the same shade of hair color as she did now. It would hopefully fool anyone at a passing glance, so that was enough for her. She just hoped this guy wasn't due to report in any time soon.

 _Who am I kidding, my luck is shit._ Leith snorted, giving the corpse a final petulant kick before slinking her way out of the cell, her bare feet padding silently on the stone floor. She closed the door behind her as quietly as possible, wincing when the hinges gave a plaintive shriek on the final stretch. Leith paused for a moment to peer around, casting her senses as far as they would go, listening for footsteps or muttering conversation.

Not a sound to be heard.

Snapping the door shut, Leith sprinted down the corridor, the balls of her feet slapping hard against the floor. From what she could feel no one was around and the cells to the side of her were all empty. As far as she knew, she was the only one locked up on this floor.

They had to put her in isolation. It was the only way to prevent her heretic ideas from poisoning the other slaves.

Or so they said.

Leith rubbed at her left shoulder through the jacket fabric, feeling the skin there pinch uncomfortably. She could still smell the scent of burning flesh despite the passage of time. _I don't think I'll ever forget that odor._

She picked up speed as she closed in on the door, her eyes pinned to a slight shape above the doorframe. Another one of the snails, only this one could act like a camera. It was how they caught her the last time she attempted to escape.

 _This time,_ Leith swore, using her momentum to kick off the side wall and leap toward the sleeping gastropod, _I won't allow them to—wait a minute..._

Bracing her hands on the wall on either side of the snail, the woman stopped her charge dead, her feet slamming into the doorframe. Bouncing back, Leith landed nimbly on her toes in a crouch, her head tilted up as she blinked at the animal in confusion.

It was snoring.

"The hell…?" she wondered aloud, leaning forward to get a look at the plate-sized creature's head and sure enough the eyes were closed, the snail was snoozing blissfully away.

Inclining her head, Leith hesitantly reached for the door and turned the knob. It opened without resistance. Giving one last look at the sleeping watch-snail, she slowly opened the door and peered through.

No one was waiting on the other side and looking up yielded yet another sleeping camera critter.

Leith paused.

"This seems too easy," she whispered, deeply suspicious.

They'd never pulled a stunt like this however. While the people keeping her here were sadistic assholes, they didn't want to just _hand_ her an opportunity to escape. They learned that lesson the first two attempts. Still, she couldn't be certain that it was a trap. Several glances in dark corners didn't show any more snails, so they weren't watching her with hidden cameras. _But where are the guards?_ she thought, biting her lip. The stairway to the next floor was right before her, but she was skeptical of the simplicity.

Her skin crawled in the silence and the woman shivered.

 _This is ridiculous,_ she concluded with a huff before steadily making her ascent, making sure to keep to the inner stair wall and use her sharpened senses to detect any movement. Leith sniffed the air experimentally, detecting nothing but stale atmosphere and old sweat, not even the scent of the guards' gunpowder and oil saturated the air.

 _Meaning what?_ Leith wondered, finally reaching the next landing and confirming that indeed this snail too was unconscious. _They couldn't have all left… could they?_

She opened the door.

Not one soul greeted her.

This level had windows and while they were too small and barred to prevent escape it did let Leith know that the party was still in full swing several levels above. The raucous laughter and loud music gave the dungeon an eerie echo, a reminder of the freedom that those trapped here lacked.

Only…

"No one's here?" she murmured, her feet tip-tapping across the hall as she strode to the nearest cell, if only to confirm that it was indeed empty. Not one sleep-deprived eye greeted her with fear and well-disguised loathing. No muffled shrieks or hasty shuffles as the beaten dregs of humanity tried to futily blend themselves into the back walls. Nothing but the twice damned shackles and the scraps of human residue remained, the faded prints on the floor the final sign that a mass exodus occurred.

"Tch, and no one thought to invite me to the party?" Leith grumbled, wrinkling her nose at the stench. Sure, she didn't smell like roses herself, but it was a whole different ballgame when it came to multiple bodies in one tight space. In any case, she didn't blame the others for forgetting her existence, or even abandoning her altogether. If opportunity knocked, _hang_ taking the time to linger in a place of misery even longer just to make sure _one_ prisoner got out.

That and the others _may_ have viewed her as a source of misfortune.

Because of _Him..._

 _Let's not think about that,_ she reflected, skirting her way into the myriad shadows cast by diagonal shafts of light. The windows may have been too small to matter much, but it was still a comfort to smell what little of the outside air that wafted in. Faintly, she could smell the sea.

 _Not free yet._

With that in mind, Leith stalked forward, following the remains of a desperate scramble to freedom. She didn't notice her hands were clenched tight enough for ragged nails to bite fresh wounds into her palms.

"This time," she said, her jaw clenching, "This time for sure…"

And she ran.

xXx

 _This name is stupid._ I'm _stupid. This is the worst idea I've ever come up with. Why didn't Tex talk me out of it?_

A beat of pause.

 _Oh wait… he did…_

Ace inclined his head politely to a passing lady, hoping that his rough imitation of the gesture he'd seen countless other noblemen perform was up to par. She didn't scoff at him, so he'd call that a win.

Once again, he was glad that the mask did such a splendid job of covering his features and thus, his grimace. It wouldn't do for the vultures that called themselves 'nobles' to catch wind of the abject terror and self-flagellation Ace was mentally putting himself through.

His near bungle at the entrance was bad enough when he almost stumbled over his 'name.' But with a quick, polite (and rather cringeworthy) "hem hem hem" he hastily corrected his error.

 _Whoever named Hammerfart Gaspard could go suffer in the deepest pits of hell…_

Meanwhile, Ace stood sweating in his stolen suit and hoped to all spirits above and below that none of Mr. Hammerfart's acquaintances were around to harass him. He almost leapt out of his own skin when the bud in his ear crackled and the deep bass of Rummy, (better known as Chops) his second mate and de-facto navigator, called over the line, _"Ace in the hole, Cap'n."_

He also had a penchant for _bad_ jokes.

"Har-dee-fuckin'-har…" Ace hissed sarcastically, fiddling with the button in his palm which allowed the baby den den mushi hidden in his coat to transmit. "I can only guess what kind of 'hole' you ended up in, Chops."

" _Not as crappy as yours. At least_ I _get to punch people."_ A grunt sounded from the other line as Ace could only assume the large man had done just that. The guy had fists the size of hams.

"Mine has gilded floors," he defended half-heartedly, grabbing a glass of wine from a passing waiter before realizing too late that his absurd bird mask would only get in the way and there was no mouth hole. Ace was really beginning to question his life choices right now. He wondered if they had straws— _really_ long ones. "...You wanna switch?"

" _Don't make me lose my respect for you, Cap'n."_

"Respect. What's that?" Ace snorted, dumping his glass into the nearest flower pot, while earning a few guffaws on the other line. "I take it you and the boys are waiting at the gate?"

Rummy's confirmation was stifled by a thin form colliding with him. Ace supposed it was meant to be a seductive caress, but ended up only relaying images of a stick falling sadly on its side. His glimpse of her face didn't help matters, as his brain decided to promptly short-circuit. A nose shaped like an ice pick. Curlers still intact. Makeup that was probably applied with a putty knife and perfume that was so cloying he could almost see it in visible light.

Her voice was like sandpaper.

Ace wanted to cry.

" _Cap'n? Cap'n, what's the matter?"_ Rummy questioned, his voice tinged with concern.

He could only settle for a whimper in response.

"Gaspy-baby, you never visit me any more," she rattled, and Ace had to physically fight the urge to burst into flames right then and there as shudder of pure _fear_ quaked down his spine. Instead, his body performed an interesting foot to shoulder tremor, in which Miss Living-Dead promptly misinterpreted, "Oh, how _excited_ you are! It's been too long since you felt my magic touch."

It was official: he was _cursed_.

 _I am never—Ever… Never-ever-ever doing this again!_

Her mask covered barely anything, the gaudy pink sparkled accessory only framing the corner of one overpainted eye. He really wished it shrouded more, it would have made the next moments only moderately more bearable.

She smiled at him and he got an eyeful of some of the blackest teeth he ever saw.

Ace had, at that moment, an epiphany. It was surreal, almost like an out-of-body experience, and he later wondered if his brain simply decided to take a holiday from the stress. Because right then, he'd never felt more glad in his life that dental hygiene was enforced—sometimes _by force_ —as a child. He swore that if he survived this he would send Dadan, Makino, Gramps— _hell,_ even _Woop Slap_ —a thank-you letter. A thank-you letter _and_ an apology, because he knew he was a terror as a child and everything about this situation was making him feel quite charitable.

 _Oh shit, I'm actually gonna hurl,_ Ace concluded, purposefully averting his eyes from that shipwreck of a smile, the saccharine aroma of her perfume overpowering his senses. Gulping down a lump in his throat, Ace took a moment to reorient himself before finally venturing to speak, "I-it has." He winced when his voice came out as a squeak, glad that his current company was too drunk to notice.

The ghoulish creature giggled as she stumbled, leaning most of her weight onto his arm, her bony sternum digging into his elbow. _That's not_ _natural_ … _Right? Right?!_

He tried not to think about it.

"Gimme some sugar, baby," she clattered and Ace could almost swear he heard her jaw click and disconnect as her mouth drew closer to his ear—

 _Nope!_

Ace, as discreetly as he could, placed a warding hand in front of her face and with a polite, if strained, voice declined her invitation, "Not here… erm… my love?" He winced at how hesitant he sounded, but thanked his lucky stars when the older woman actually _swooned_. Still didn't stop him from throwing up in his mouth a little, but he persevered despite his difficulties.

Laying a hand on the woman's lower back, Ace aborted the instinctive recoil at the feel of her leathery skin against his flesh. Twirling her around so she faced the buffet, he pushed to steer her to the punch bowl, where he was certain he saw a senile grandfatherly fellow pour even _more_ liquor into the mixture. _That should properly knock her out, long enough to forget all about me,_ Ace hoped. "T-the night is still young, but I promise you all the time in the world later," he said instead, mentally crossing his fingers that she'll accept the lie, " _Much_ later… Alright? At the usual place, hm?"

" _Smooth, Cap'n."_

He _flinched_. Ace realized then, much to his horror, that he had been holding down the transmission button the entire encounter. _Oh fuck, he heard all that!_

Hastily, he released his vice grip on the switch.

"Ohhuhuhu," she tittered, unknowing of the man's internal dilemma, frantically fanning herself and fluttering her fake eyelashes, "I look forward to it you _naughty_ thing, I'll get all the equipment ready~" Attempting to do a provocative purr, the stumbling disaster only managed to make some sort of throaty wheeze before swaying and tripping her way to the beverages.

Ace happily about-faced and made himself scarce, he didn't _want_ to know what kind of 'equipment' she had planned.

" _Sooo, Cap'n, are we to expect a missus on board?"_

"Not another word, Chops," Ace hissed, the chorus of raucous laughter on the other end doing nothing to ease his embarrassment, "You didn't see that-that-that _thing!_ It was like an animated corpse!" There absolutely was no holding out hope that the rest of the crew hadn't heard that, because that was far too many voices to only be Rummy. _Shit, did he put me on speaker?!_

He was going to kill him.

Skirting his way around the ballroom, Ace threaded a winding path through the crowd, intent on one of the side gardens. From what one of his men gathered when fishing for information on the place, there should be a servant's corridor along the perimeter. It allowed the palace staff to travel unseen without disturbing the nobles' all-too-delicate sensibilities.

The crackle of another call made Ace twitch, but he didn't lose his calm stride. The den den mushi connected to the third line automatically and the chill drawl of Tex's voice filtered in, _"Liberation success."_

Ace smiled, muttering a reply, "I take it there were no problems?"

" _A few of the guards kicked up a fuss, but they quieted down right quick when they couldn't reach anyone in Control,"_ Tex said, a dry chuckle sounding. Ace snorted in amusement at the implied chaos that followed, he could almost see it. _"Hart's holding down the fort there. I got Mao with me on escort through the sewers, we're on our way to the docks right now."_

"Good," he replied, ducking out of the bright hall and into the dusk of the garden, the cacophony of ceaseless chatter fading into the background. Ace blinked to adjust his eyesight, the gloomily lit yard a stark contrast to the harsh bright white and gold of the interior. No one else was here, which made his next task much easier. "Once you get them a boat and a heading, return to the waypoint. We'll meet you there when we finish up here," he said, striding purposefully around the nearest hedge.

" _Aye, Captain,"_ Tex confirmed and the line went quiet.

So long as he appeared focused and not too hurried, he hoped no one would come to investigate out of suspicion.

 _Don't notice me… Don't notice me. Everything's normal here,_ Ace thought, almost commanding his facade to work through sheer force of will alone. His years of practice trying to hide from the Shitty Geezer were hopefully paying off.

There were no signs of pursuit.

He blended into the shadows, glad that the majority of his costume was black and strode to the garden perimeter. It took him a moment of fumbling around in the dark to locate the entrance, but he finally bumped into a door partially hidden among some climbing vines. When jiggling the handle didn't work, Ace peered about for a moment before kicking a hole through the lock.

The door opened just fine after that, though he doubted it would ever close properly again what with the plank of wood nearly bent in half.

He wasn't a locksmith, damn it.

An abyssal corridor greeted him like an open throat, the smell of old earth and the musk of rotting vegetation doing nothing to endear the man to the passage. Ace grimaced, the lack of any visible light source making the entire thing all the more creepy. Glancing back once again to be sure no one came to investigate the noise, Ace snapped his fingers, a single flame alighting the tip of his index digit. Hesitantly, he ventured into the passage, his shoe heels grinding into the fine powder on the floor.

Aside from just being overall muggy and damp, the tunnel appeared fairly normal, if somewhat rat-infested. Small alcoves along the walls indicated areas where a light source would be placed at regular intervals, but perusal of these locations showed that they hadn't been utilized in years. It was disheartening to think that real people were forced to use these tunnels, but Ace tried not to focus his thoughts too much on that point, he didn't want to sear the entire corridor and give up his position.

The path echoed with his footfalls, but was otherwise as silent as the grave. Roots from the plants above reached down between the cracks of the brickwork, creating a canopy of pale reaching claws. Luckily, the ceiling was high enough that Ace didn't need to worry about the roots touching his head, though a few damp droplets did splatter upon his shoulders. _Hopefully Chops doesn't have a hard time coming through here…_ he mused, eyeing the walls on either side of him with some trepidation, _It's a bit narrow._

It would certainly be a tight squeeze for the larger man.

His excursion through the passage came to an abrupt end when he arrived upon a door, this time made of rusted iron. Voices filtered in from the other side through a small grate, the tones low and whispering. Feeling a bit impish, Ace barked, "What's the password, ye scurvy dogs!"

An abrupt silence followed his demand, but was short lived when he heard Rummy snicker. "Didn't know you had it in you, _Gaspy-baby~"_

That painful reminder made his playful smile drop faster than an anchor.

"You know, I could always leave you out here, Chops…" Ace griped, though his words didn't have any real venom to them.

Rummy snorted and replied in the most simpering voice he could manage, "Don't be like that Cap'n, you'll break my heart."

A startled bark of a laugh broke through the din of giggles. _That_ particular chortle sounded like Eights. The 'yigigigigi' noise always gave him the impression that his crewmate earned the moniker 'Crazy' if only for that laugh alone, though he knew better. The man was a fox. "So, Partner? What took you so long?"

"I got lost on the road of life," Ace replied, grunting as he wrenched free the deadbolt, the rust coating the metal bar flaking off like old leaves. The door gave an unholy shriek as it opened on worn hinges, revealing the five hulking figures of the rest of his crew and the scattered, tied-up forms of unconscious guards. "Though I think I saw a zombie not long ago…" He gave a pointed look at the rotund shape that could only be Rummy.

Rummy, to his credit, only managed to make a choking sound because he was laughing so hard. The others snickered at his predicament.

"Whoa, nice duds, Captain!" Slapjack declared, scratching at the black curls of his beard thoughtfully as he slid his gaze up and down Ace's suit. The others murmured in agreement. "You almost don't look like yourself."

"Oh I try~" Ace preened, plucking at the lapels of the jacket before dusting off his shoulders. "I'm sure the bird mask helps though."

A wide smile split the man's face nearly in twain. "Definitely."

"Speaking of which, do you guys have yours?" Ace questioned, bobbing his own head when the others gave nods of assent. "Good. Don't put them on until we get to the other side of the tunnel. It's pitch black in there."

The way back, as he suspected, was a tight squeeze, but they managed well enough even with the meager light his flames provided. Rummy sidled along, his stomach barely brushing the wall as he waddled through the narrow corridor, his expression pulling into his usual thunderous glare. Both Rook and Pitch had to duck slightly to prevent their heads from brushing the tangling roots, their towering heights a disadvantage. The rest had no such problems.

Once outside, they gathered as one in a circle just beyond the busted door, the crew taking the time to tie on their custom masks, each one a different breed of dog. Except…

"Rook, what the hell is that?" Ace pointed, his index finger nearly touching the orange blotches of paint that had been carelessly applied to the wooden faceplate.

Rook was tall, with long black curly hair resting upon his neck like a mane and a widow's peak cresting his forehead. His severe face was perpetually pinched into a frown and in general, just had the appearance of a man that was not to be trifled with.

The aesthetic was ruined however, because the man had a weakness for children's handicrafts.

Specifically, the poorly painted mask he was currently donning.

"It's a dog," he responded mildly. The man never yelled—Ace didn't believe he was even capable of yelling—but his voice was deep enough to carry despite this.

"Doesn't look like a dog," Rummy muttered with a scowl, his round eyes blinking through the holes of his own canine disguise.

"Kinda seems like a sunflower if you tilt your head and squint a little!" Crazy Eights cackled.

"Could be a lion… a really shitty lion," Slapjack mused.

"A little boy made it…" Rook murmured in weak argument.

"Alright! Alright, calm down, all of you," Ace ordered, raising his arms in a placating gesture when the group began discussing just a bit too loudly, "We're on the clock here."

Once everyone settled down and properly affixed their masks, the band of outlaws tiptoed their way through the garden hedges, eyes and ears on high alert for any movement other than their own.

No one stopped them and, by the time they arrived back at the garden door, the party was still going in full swing. It did seem, however, that quite a few of the guests wouldn't be going anywhere fast any time soon. Ace had been right about that fruit punch after all.

As such, not one of the partygoers noticed when Rummy closed the door to the veranda and barred it from the outside with an iron rod.

When Ace gave him a questioning look, Rummy shrugged before replying, "We're not going in and no one's getting out. It'd be best if we close off any other ballroom access that we see."

He had a point. The bulk of their heist would be in the apartments rather than the common areas, so there was less chance of running into resistance.

Most of the palace guard had been sufficiently distracted, thanks to Hart's efforts, but that didn't mean there weren't any left.

Not to mention the Marines.

Ace would much rather be up and out of there long before the Marines caught wind of their activities, though the prospect of a chase sounded tantalizing. The very thought made his blood rush, his heart pumping full of adrenaline. He couldn't help the excited grin that curved a path through his cheeks.

 _Spent too many years getting chased down by Gramps,_ he mused, boot heels clicking on the marble floor as he led the way to the nobles' personal quarters, _Damn old fart has rubbed off on me._

Saying that they were grabbing everything that wasn't nailed down would have been a gross exaggeration and wholly inaccurate. It would be more precise to say that while _some_ items were indeed nailed down and others weren't, they took only the things that they could feasibly carry.

Though, of course, there were exceptions.

"Dammit, no! Put down that chair! There is no way in hell you're carrying that back to the ship!"

Slapjack probably was pouting behind his mask as he gave the solid gold chair a longing look, but Ace had to put his foot down some time. There were plenty other smaller objects of equal or greater value the man could ferry out of here that would weigh far less than that damn chair. Lust for gold was all well and good, but gold was _heavy._

Many of the partygoers were guests from foreign islands, so of course they had to have room and board somewhere. Why check yourself into a ritzy hotel when you could brag to your friends about sleeping within the palace itself?

Ace had to wonder, as he closed yet another drawer full of questionable nightwear, at the logic of this island's king for allowing so many weirdos to sleep in his stupidly large house. _Maybe he's lonely?_

He then grimaced when he recalled that the walking dead woman said something about getting equipment. _Was the king in on that, too?_ Suddenly, he didn't want to know.

They were making a decent haul: Jewelry and various other baubles were in abundance. Money, of course (though why anybody would want to just leave a bathtub full of money was anyone's guess). Eights found a treasure map of some island they'd never heard of. Pitch discovered an weird wristband with a clear casing around a needle that reminded him of a compass, only it pointed in a direction that strangely enough was _not_ north.

Ace meanwhile, after a moment of glancing around to make sure no one was looking, slipped off his mask and popped a jar of mints into his mouth.

"Cap'n, what the hell are you doing?"

Jolting in surprise, Ace swung around to give Rummy the most piteous look he could with a mouth full of gooey candy. "Wy wask hunkry, Choss…" he whined. The damn mask hadn't allowed him to eat a thing while he was suffering alone at the party, and his meal at the restaurant had been _hours_ ago. He was _starving_.

Rummy just shook his head in lieu of pinching his brow, his own mask now preventing his usual gesture when stressed. "Just—put your mask back on, we don't know when we'll run into someone else."

Pouting, Ace put the stifling facial accessory back on, rolling around the now jawbreaker sized fusion of mints in his mouth as he tied the cords. He knew the man had a point, but that didn't mean he liked it. Still, while this was all initially Ace's idea, it was Tex that had done the bulk of the planning, and he didn't want all of his First Mate's efforts to be wasted.

So he'd suffer the mask.

" _Bossman, we got incoming."_

Ace blinked at the gruff interruption. It was Hart, his sniper, acting as lookout after taking down the palace's control room and subjugating the majority of the guards. When face-to-face, the man had a pleasant twang to his voice and was as polite and gentlemanly as his suit and tophat advertised. But the moment he was behind a gun, he was like a different person.

 _Which means he has someone in his sights right now._ Ace flipped the channel and barked, "Hart this is the Captain, what do you see? Who's incoming?"

" _A woman,"_ Hart said, his tone almost robotic as he recited the target's description, _"Height five foot. Undernourished. Probably below ninety pounds. Hair color… Unidentifiable. Wearing the palace guard regalia. There are three palace guards in pursuit."_

"A slave?" Ace asked, feeling sick. Tex had told him that they freed all the slaves on record. _Could one of them have gotten separated from the group?_

" _They are closing in quickly to your location, would you like me to neutralize them?"_

Sucking in a breath, Ace felt a cold shiver grip his spine at that statement. He would never get used to it, the clinical way that Hart viewed his targets. It never sat well with him. Like they were just another dart on a board.

"Take out the guards, but don't kill them. Leave the woman. Let her meet up with us," he responded, feeling his throat tighten despite knowing they wouldn't die. Hart was good at what he did.

Still didn't make him feel good to issue such orders, though he knew they couldn't always go for the non-lethal takedown.

Ace told himself that he didn't flinch when he heard three cracks echo through the air.

" _She hasn't stopped,"_ Hart reported.

"We got incoming," he said to Rummy, who nodded, "Get the others. Someone at the party would have heard those shots."

"Aye, Cap'n," he said, hiking up the bag of goods they'd both acquired and sprinting out the door.

Rushing out of the room on Rummy's heels, Ace skid to a halt and turned to where he could hear bare feet slapping into the marble. Distantly, he could hear Rummy calling to the men on the other side of the hall, but Ace was too distracted by the small figure barreling down corridor, skillfully tapping her feet against the wall to pivot into a turn without losing momentum.

He had a brief moment of thinking, "Damn, she's fast," before she was upon him. Ace didn't register when exactly she jumped, but it was only when the ball of her foot connected with porcelain of his mask that he realized his error.

He also realized she wasn't wearing pants.

But that was irrelevant.

"Ow! Shit!" he exclaimed, when she bombarded his face once and then twice with her feet as she vaulted over him like a fence post, flipping to land cat-like on her feet behind him.

There was a distinctive pop as his mask cracked from the force, but it didn't shatter, still clinging dutifully to his face. He had the sense to dodge out of the way when she sent a spin kick his way, her heel nearly grazing his ribs as she turned.

She snarled at the near-miss.

Ace was surprised, to say the least. For someone who was supposedly underfed and underweight, she was still managing to pull off physical feats that would leave any normal person stumbling.

 _She must have been very well-trained in acrobatics to pull off these stunts,_ he thought as he slowly backed away, keeping his hands up in a non-threatening gesture. _This is no ordinary slave._

"I'm not going to hurt you," Ace said, sidestepping in the opposing direction as she prowled like a stalking tiger.

"Like I'd believe the word of some noble prick," she scoffed, her hair shrouding most of her features, leaving only her mouth and nose exposed and her eyes shadowed.

Ace now knew what Hart meant when he said her hair color was unidentifiable. It was so matted with grime and other filth that it was impossible to discern.

"All of you lie and lie and _lie_. Well, I'm not falling for it—Not again," she continued, heedless of Pitch approaching at her back, "I'm getting out of here, and if I have to kill you to earn my freedom…" Tensing into a crouch, her lips peeled back to bare her teeth. "Then I will gladly take that chance," she rumbled.

She tilted her head to the side—as if hearing something—before whirling about to strike at Pitch, cursing under her breath.

Pitch took it in stride. Meaning that he caught her fist and spun her around into a hammerlock, applying pressure to her shoulder joints that were just painful enough to halt movement. Or at least, that was the plan—she proved to be far more determined to escape, as evidenced by her continuous bellowing and kicking at the tall man's shins.

To his credit though, Pitch didn't even flinch. He apparently had far more experience as a mixed martial artist and only used minor adjustments to keep the woman pinned.

"Let go of me!" she roared, twisting and kicking and of all things attempting to _bite_ any stray part that came within reach. "Let go of me, or I'll kill you!"

Ace sighed and rubbed the back of his head as the rest of the crew came around the bend. _Someone is definitely going to hear this,_ he lamented, fingers touching curiously to the large cracks in his mask. They really were going to have their hands full with this one.

"I'm not going _back_!" the woman screeched, a desperate sound that reverberated off the walls and echoed eerily down the hallway.

"Listen!" Ace hissed, his nerves finally frayed enough to snap. "I said we aren't going to hurt you so could you just—" He paused as he caught a glimpse of something he saw earlier that day. He blinked and then blinked again, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him. " _You…"_

Because he knew that face.

Head cocked in a curious manner, wide hazel eyes were locked onto his own, her gaze nearly feral as she panted in Pitch's grasp.

 _(Brown hair, powdered grey from the falling ash, shifted with a stray wind to reveal a worn face, grey with pain. Dark circles sitting heavy beneath her hazel eyes accentuated her haunted look.)_

She looked _exactly_ as he remembered from his dream.

 _But how is that possible,_ he wondered, eyeing the white jacket and tank top that were both far too large for her emaciated frame. Her feet and legs were caked with some unidentifiable grime and he could see the remains of old blood on every part of exposed flesh.

And judging by Pitch's pinched expression she didn't smell too fine either.

"Well butter my ass and call me a biscuit, it's the Backstreet Boys!" she exclaimed sarcastically, glaring venomously at each one of them through the fringe of her hair. "Though some of you have more…" she trailed off and narrowed her eyes suspiciously, leaning forward to pin the men with a contemplative look, " _Generousness_ than I remember."

While they didn't know who these 'backstreet boys' were, they did know enough to guess she just insulted them. Still, Crazy Eights stifled a guffaw, though he wasn't terribly successful if his shaking shoulders were anything to go by.

Rook smacked him on the back of the head.

"You look great by the way," she continued nonplussed, nodding all the way as her eyes flickered between Rummy and Slapjack, " _Very_ healthy."

"Alright, that's enough," Rummy interjected, recognizing when someone was stalling, "Cap'n, we need to call it. Someone will be here at any moment."

"Oh?" The woman asked, her eyes brightening upon locating the various sacks slung over each man's shoulder. A look of comprehension crossed her features before she gave a curling smirk, " _Oh~_ Naughty. Naughty. What are you little noblettes getting up to this Halloween night?"

Ace continued to gape. There was no mistaking her for anyone else. _This_ was the woman from his dream at the restaurant. _But how? This is impossible,_ he wondered, observing the way her face twisted into a sneer when she caught him staring, _What does this—_

" _Cap'n,_ " Rummy interrupted with a hint of concern.

Shaking his head, Ace turned away from the conundrum before him, his mind still in a chaotic whirl, "Right. Calling it. Yeah…" he muttered distractedly, pinging the den den mushi, "Hart, we're pulling out, get yourself to the rendezvous."

" _Aye, Bossman."_

He switched over to Tex's channel, "Tex, take Mao and get the _Wild Card_ ready to launch, we might be coming in hot."

" _ **Hot**_ _-Hot? Or…?"_ Tex asked uncertainly, his voice betraying a just hint of excitement at the prospect.

Ace thought about it for a moment. "We're going to be running like our asses are on fire."

"You'd better not make that literal," Rummy growled.

"Shut up!"

* * *

 **A/N:** In which Ace finds his dream woman, in the literal sense...

Hello all and welcome to another episode of "Abalisk Makes Another Goddamn Fanfiction" with your lovely host: Abalisk (formerly Azhdah, I changed my name recently) _._

A lot of this was inspired by _Lang Noi's_ "Ocean Stars Falling" and _Tsume Yuki's_ "Tell it to the Marines" so you can thank them for all the inspiration and motivation they gave me. And of course go read their stories! Do it right now!

If you want to shoot me an ask or just want to bounce around some fun ideas you can send me a message on my tumblr: **_fanfiction-by-abalisk . tumblr . com_** (without spaces of course) and I will answer as best as I can! I have fan art from my own work and for other people's fics over there too if you wish to peruse.

And as always, much loves and talk to you next time~


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Shout out to Lang Noi for sticking with me through this monstrosity.

* * *

Chapter 2: Hark! A Vagrant

Leith wasn't angry, per se.

No.

She was _furious._

Because once again, she found herself in deep shit, captured by a cadre of noble scumbags. _Truly_ , it was a fine job. A real masterpiece. She couldn't have done better, if say, she'd stripped naked and danced in front of them, because then at least they'd have been too shocked to do a damn thing about it.

But of course, that wasn't how it started…

xXx

Her trek out of the dungeons had been, thus far, uneventful. Not a guard or servant in sight. The halls as empty and open as a mausoleum, a concept that screwed with her paranoia something fierce. With a mass break out like she'd seen evidence for, there should have been droves of palace guard running to and fro like chickens with their heads cut off. But there was no one. The corridors as barren as a tomb.

It was really starting to mess with her.

Dutifully, she followed the tracks of her fellow prisoners, her feet barely making a sound as she crept down the corridor. Hooded eyes darted over every window and door, discarding the phantom images rising from the lapis lazuli tile. She kept reminding herself that it was just the lack of sleep catching up to her, that they weren't really there.

That awareness didn't stop her from occasionally punching at one or two shadows, however. Her fists just barely avoiding impact against the wall on several occasions. Leith wasn't going to be taking any chances, hallucinations or not. She had enough experience with the consequences.

Which was why, before she took the next bend, she skid to a halt and listened intently to the voices around the corner.

"I'm telling you the damn thing's broken," a frustrated male voice grumbled, the sound of metal clanging against metal echoing down the hall.

"Maybe it's an outage," another man said, his tone inquisitive, "I've seen them act like this before when the control room's power went haywire."

"Well that's ridiculous," a third barked. The tapping sound sped up. "You! Damn beast! I _order_ you to connect to control!"

"That's not how it works, dumbass," the first voice griped.

"Then how do you expect we report that the slaves have escaped?" the third snarled, and Leith stiffened, shoulders tensing up. Her eyes traced the fading tracks, large and small, and sure enough they rounded the bend, leading through where the guards were arguing. "By the time we get a search party going, they'll have gotten away!"

"We can always track them ourselves," the second murmured thoughtfully, the apparent brains of the operation, "We might get a reward if we get them alone. Besides, the comms always come back after an outage. We'll have caught them by the time it's fixed."

Gritting her teeth, Leith seethed as the men plotted and lauded their own cleverness. _These are people's lives they're talking about,_ she fumed, clenching her scabbed hands, _Treating this like a nuisance—they're stomping all over their hopes!_

She was tired of being treated like livestock.

And like _hell_ she was going to let them get a head start to hunt down those poor people. _They just got free,_ she reflected, inching a little bit closer, her adrenaline pumping through her veins. _And I'm not going to stand by and let these assholes have their way. Not when I can do something about it._

A familiar sense thrummed like a second heart, the lust for battle almost as strong as her elation for freedom. Her breathing quickened in excitement. Her eyesight sharpened, throwing everything in stark relief. She had to fight down the pleased shudder that wracked her body, the hairs on her limbs standing on end as her awareness heightened.

It was always like this before combat, like she'd been doused in a cool bucket of water. It gave her just enough of an edge to avoid critical strikes.

The ones that would have left her dead long ago.

Leith smiled wryly. _So much for taking the easy way out,_ she mused, her thoughts turning to the hopeful faces of the few slaves she once knew. _Yuga. Salem. Juri..._ And would never see again.

It was the least she could do, for all the trouble she caused.

Peeking around the corner, Leith eyed the palace guards, gauging their anatomy, stances, and weapons. The men were none-the-wiser to her observations, simply standing in a circle harassing one of the snail phones, who was currently pulling off a decent impression of a lawnmower.

At a glance, the guards didn't look so tough, but her body had taken enough strikes from their batons to know that they knew how to used them and that they hurt like a _bitch_.

Stifling a groan, Leith only now remembered that _all_ the guards had standard-issue retractable batons. Which meant she left a perfectly good weapon behind on that corpse in the cell.

 _Should have checked the pants. Should have checked the God. Damned. Pants! Stupid. STUPID!_ she lamented, forcing down the urge to bash her skull into the wall. There wasn't any time for this, she couldn't backtrack and there was a limited amount of time to address the problem nearby.

 _Improvisation it is, then,_ she told herself.

Huffing in a deep breath, she crouched, bunching and stretching the muscles in her legs. None of the men out there were taller than six feet, and at least one of them looked more bottom heavy than anything. She _might_ be able to outrun them.

 _I need a distraction,_ Leith mused, looking about the corridor, searching for anything that could be used as a tool.

Her eyes lit up when she saw the banner.

It was long, standing proud in royal blue silk from from floor to ceiling with the Paramour Orchid in glittering gold in the center. She'd seen plenty of these standards wafting gently in the halls, but hadn't given them much thought as she walked by.

Now she saw opportunity.

Giving a wicked grin, Leith strode over to the nearest flag and yanked, hearing a satisfying rip at the seams where it was mounted to the wall. Randomly, she recalled reading that silk had a higher tensile strength than other fabrics; a seemingly useless snippet of knowledge that strangely enough applied here. As such, it took several more pulls before the entire thing finally fluttered to the ground.

It was a bit unwieldy in its length, but light and soft, she could easily manipulate the fabric with just a flick of her wrist. It would be perfect for what she had in mind.

Pulling around one of the ends, Leith fashioned a hood out of it, the final result of her tying making it look more like a fancy noose than anything.

 _Act One of the play is about to begin,_ Leith thought, amused despite the gravity of the situation.

Her beating heart roared loudly in her ears, a war drum's beat. She had the urge to hum, but squashed it, knowing that doing so would give her away too early. _Focus. I need focus,_ she reminded herself, blinking her eyes hard and shaking her head when a wave of disorientation hit her.

Her eyes still ached from staring at the wall of her cell, from straining to see anything in the pitch black. Day and night meant nothing in that hole. She couldn't tell when she last slept or even when her last meal was.

It felt like an eternity.

She still wasn't sure how she perceived the guard outside the cell before he entered. Or the way she avoided death by a hairsbreadth. Or how she even came to be _here._

 _[chokingsmotheringgaspingcan'tbreathe]_

Leith wasn't certain of a lot of things.

Shaking away her sidetracked thoughts, Leith took a deep breath and bundled up the silk in her arms. The cloth folding and looping like a snake as she made sure it didn't tangle.

It was now or never.

Getting the noose ready in her offhand, Leith bolted toward the men at speed, for fear that she would lose her nerve.

The closest one peered up from his scowling face-off with the sleeping snail, probably hearing her bare feet pound against the marble. His slow turn ended with a face full of soft fabric as Leith vaulted up and over him, using his companions' heads as springboards to somersault.

 _I don't think I'll ever get used to jumping this high,_ Leith reflected, remembering the shock of performing similar feats upon arrival. A feral smile came unbidden to her lips, the elation of participating in a brawl after so long in stagnation almost overwhelming her senses. The thrill of battle drumming a staccato beat in her veins. She released some of her hold on the silk, allowing the fabric to snake between the stunned men. _That day seems so far away now..._

Upon landing back on the floor, Leith yanked as hard as she could, tugging on her victim's covered face as he scrabbled with the silk. His unbalanced position threw him back, forcing him to bowl over the other two men in his attempt to find purchase. The resulting squawks and tangle of bodies was just as she designed. She couldn't have been more proud.

Leith crowed a laugh and bolted, taking no more time to admire her handiwork, even if her palms itched to finish the job. "Suck on that, you jackasses!" she called over her shoulder, knowing they'd be on her like white on rice if she stuck around long enough for them to recover.

The enraged bellowing at her back was enough of a clue that her diversion worked.

 _Now to find a way to get rid of them,_ she mused, her legs pumping hard and breathing even. It was familiar.

Too familiar.

The wild grin on her face fell and Leith noted that her left shoulder itched again, the smell of burning flesh assaulting her nostrils. The hallway before her stretched and distantly she could hear the sounds of a jeering crowd.

 _I'm not going back there,_ she told herself, invisible chains weighing her down. Everything dissolved into a sluggish haze and Leith recalled how the walls were stained black.

 _The Pit..._

Something pinged at the very edge of her awareness and Leith shattered through the walls of her delirium, the vision falling away like broken glass.

She was still running, but she nearly overlooked the sensation of being watched, the precise analysis that made the hairs on the back of her neck stiffen and a chill sweat break out on her skin.

Like being observed by a predator.

Her perception went haywire and Leith willed herself to go faster. To outrun the gaze. To find cover. The doused flames of her bloodlust roared to life once again, and her lips curled back in a silent snarl as she searched for the perpetrator. Her awareness flying out like a net.

It was impossible to miss the sound of gunfire. Three shots precisely.

She didn't stop, focusing all of her energy in getting away from the shooter. Too distracted to realize that she was no longer being pursued.

Distracted... By the distinctive shape of a man standing in her way.

Leith's blood howled at the unspoken challenge.

xXx

Which is how she ended up in _this_ situation…

Giving her most baleful glower, Leith eyed the menagerie of freaks she got herself mixed up with. There were six in total, arrayed in a semicircle around her, with one man at her back ( _he got behind me, how the fuck did he get behind me_ ) holding her in place. Five of the men wore dog masks—though the one with the speckled orange paint was dubious at best _(Is it a dog or a lion?)_ —while the individual she had the distinct pleasure of drop kicking in the face bore a raven mask.

She eyed her handiwork with a modicum of pride, the porcelain cracking magnificently from the forehead and down the beak. It was surprising that the thing was still intact. Though, when several flakes of ceramic crumbled away and took part of the crown of feathers with it, she figured it wasn't going to last much longer.

Considering the type of material and the glittering decoration, she assumed this one to be the leader. He was certainly dressed for the part.

Leith snorted derisively when she checked out the floral waistcoat. _Classy._

The sound attracted Mr. Nevermore's attention and her scowl deepened when he turned to stare at her again, his conversation apparently finished with his friends over the radio.

"The fuck is your problem?" she growled, glaring straight into the dark pits of the mask's eyes. Leith knew full well that direct eye contact was a challenging gesture, and one that would easily cow those with weaker dispositions.

Or earn herself a beating. She had enough of those to know what to expect. And while her head was clear enough _now_ to give sardonic commentary, the battle readiness still vibrated under the surface of her skin, ready to spring forth at any moment.

What she didn't expect however, was for him to continue peering at her and to do nothing in retaliation for kicking him. The interest was unnerving, and Leith wasn't certain if it was due to recognition or purely out of curiosity. In any case, it pissed her off royally.

"Take a picture, shithead, it'll last longer," she taunted. _Because what the hell, might as well go for broke. If he's going to just keep ogling me, then I better take advantage of it._

While it wasn't entirely clear what was going on with this group's operation, she had enough of an idea to make an educated guess. What with calling the Edgar Allen Poe-reject "captain," the organized communication system, the bags filled with a variety of lumpy objects...

It was probably some noble equivalent of a frat boy initiation, like a double-dog-dare to steal from the party host or something equally stupid.

 _Seems no matter what dimension I'm in, men will find ways to be idiots,_ Leith thought, rolling her eyes at the absurdity of it. _Not that I have any room to criticize,_ she reasoned, in a moment of self-critique, _'Cuz who was the brilliant tactician that got caught by the boy band?_ This _jackass._

Seemed she always had time for self-depreciation these days.

The palace was always throwing a party every other day, so it really should be no surprise that the guests would get bored of repeat performances. Keeping themselves entertained at the expense of others was a common hobby, no matter how far up the chain the victim was. Yeah, sure, rob the king of the Paramour and get bragging rights among their circle of friends. So long as they didn't get caught, who cared?

 _Someone_ always got the shit end of the stick, one way or another.

Her thoughts, briefly, turned to the Pit and she staunchly banished them with a shake of her head. _Now is not the time for that,_ Leith reflected, knowing that no matter which way she turned this situation, she was stuck. Trapped to the whims of nobles once again.

She wanted to believe they didn't plan to put her next on their entertainment schedule, but wasn't going to start counting her chickens yet. What with being in the company of six men larger than her, she doubted she would be able to successfully fight her way out. Especially with Master Krav Maga holding her down.

 _Doesn't mean I can't try,_ she reasoned, and her struggles began anew.

"Look, I said we weren't going to hurt you," Ravenclaw said, while she grunted and cursed trying to beat her heel into the instep of his underling's foot, but it was like the guy was made of steel. The bird-masked wonder sounded tired as he rubbed the back of his head and continued, "You're making things more difficult than it has to be."

Grimacing, Leith ceased her attempts at a counter-grapple and gave Harvey Birdman a critical look. _He's a weird one. What noble worth their salt uses_ reason _to win their arguments?_

Suffice to say, she was still expecting that beating any time now. So much so that she was starting to itch with the anticipation. Certainly not because she enjoyed such attentions, but because it was making her nervous. Her life had taken on a _charming_ theme since arriving in this damn place, wherever it was.

"Tch, and _I_ say that you're full of shit," she said contemptuously, flipping her filthy hair back to both get it out of her face and to act as a subtle "fuck you" to the guy standing behind her. Leith felt satisfied when she heard the resultant cough and sputter. "So how about we compromise?" she offered, pausing for dramatic effect before smirking. "Why don't you just… let me go?"

"Can't do that," Goon Numero Uno growled, his black hair stood on end above a yellow headband and a goatee peeked out from under the jaws of his doberman mask. He adjusted his grip on her wrists when she tried to subtly twist away. "We can't guarantee that you won't attack us again."

"There you have it," she said, a little smug, turning back to the… Birdbrain—she was running out of names to call him. "Trust is a two way street, darlin', and if you can't keep up then you might as well not play." Leith leaned forward, despite the growing ache in her shoulders, and bared her teeth. " _We_ are at an impasse."

The urge to reach out and tear into him was strong, her limbs practically quivering in expectation. Perhaps the Jet Li impersonator sensed this, because he didn't allow her to lean any further, giving her arms a pointed wrench when she got too close. Leith briefly entertained the idea that he was like her, that he could judge intentions like a sixth sense. It would certainly explain how he was able to sneak up on her.

The Raven looked undecided, an oddity which sidelined her bloodthirsty thoughts into the timeout corner. _Why does he—_

She didn't get much of a chance to ponder it, because a high voice cut through the moment like the grating of nails on a chalkboard. "What have we heeeere~?"

The distinctly warbling tone made Leith's spine snap straight, her shuddering ceasing into an unnatural stillness. She knew that voice all too well. It haunted her dreams some nights when the screaming wasn't enough. When the black stains on the wall were more than paint. When the feeling of a knife puncturing flesh reverberated with shockwaves through her arms. The raucous laughter filled her ears like a nineties sitcom laugh track.

If she had hackles, they would have stood on end.

The man holding her arms loosened his grasp. Leith wasn't certain as to why, but didn't contemplate the action. She only knew that the pressure in her shoulders eased considerably, and while she still couldn't _move,_ tingling feeling was beginning to return to her fingers.

Leith sucked in a breath as her tormentor finally came into view, her heartbeat picking up in rhythm as he drew closer. She was right, it was Lord Matchlock, the top bidder for all her "games" in the Pit and high on the list of nobles to make her life miserable. He'd always been sure to bet the largest amount of money on her matches, ever since she impressed him on the first upset...

Looking at him now, the masks of the men around her made sense. Tonight's party clearly had a masquerade theme, as evidenced by the opulent crimson bird mask adorning the upper half of his face.

His grin had far too many white teeth for her liking and Leith fought to keep herself from shying away out of instinct. _He's not Him… Not Him,_ she told herself, her hands twitching behind her back as she repeated the mantra. _He was there. He was laughing, but he's. Not. Him_.

She didn't notice that her breathing had become audible, chest heaving, until her captor jerked her back and hissed in her ear. "Calm down. We won't let him touch you."

 _What?_

Trying to twist about to see his face, to judge his sincerity for herself, Leith forgot that his doberman mask covered nearly the entirety of it. He tightened his grip in warning when she tried to look anyway.

"Found some fffun, ah?" Matchlock staggered and Leith blinked in confusion. He was drunk.

 _Party got out of hand, huh?_ she thought wryly, unsympathetic as she observed the man's colt-ish stumbling. She didn't lower her guard, aware that this man was as insidious as they came. The promise of her current captor still niggling the paranoid corner of her mind. _He won't let him touch me… So what is he planning?_

"I remumber her. My favorite. Fights and fights and fff _urp_ —" He lurched for a moment, his entire upper body contorting in a motion that warned of an imminent regurgitation, but he seemed to have mastered himself after only a couple seconds of obvious struggle. "Best one in the riiing," he continued after a belch, using the wall as a support, "Made the most muhh-ney back when they al-allowed it."

He hiccupped and giggled. Leith scowled. She'd never seen a noble so drunk while alone before, they usually had guards surrounding their plastered asses. _Why is he out here by himself?_

"A'ways squeals for the kidz," the noble slurred, heedless of his own safety, lumbering forward as his smile curled into something malicious. "Nothin' else works."

Everything _stopped_.

Leith knew what it meant to be cold. Her cell always had a pervasive chill that leached down to her bones, gripping her relentlessly until she was forced to curl up in the rancid bedding in the corner. If she could have seen anything beyond darkness, her breath would have created fog in the air.

This is what she felt now. A gaping emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole, a heaviness in her heart.

Just like that day...

' _No… NO! STOP IT! Don't hurt them!'_

' _Help! I don't— I don't wan—AHHHH!'_

And then she _burned._

No force in this world could have prepared her for the rush of unbridled rage. The boiling wrath that pumped through her veins. The seething hatred that yearned for death. To destroy. To maim. _To Kill!_ There was no conscious thought, there were no strings of curses, only fury as she screamed wordlessly and threw herself at the man. The filth. The _monster_ before her.

She was _there_ again. The Pit. The bright lights beaming down on the arena floor, stained black from the blood of many desperate battles. Shrieks of the dying and cheers of the crowd filling her ears with a discordant cacophony, a hellish symphony.

Someone was screaming. It took Leith too long to realize it was her own voice.

Something held her back—chains or hands, she couldn't tell—pinning her arms behind her and away from the bastard's eyes. His mask had shattered in her hands, the glass and feather pinions tearing open wounds new and old.

He was laughing. The fucker was _laughing_. "What did I tell you?" he crowed joyously, stepping away and out of her reach. "It works every time!"

More laughter filtered in through the haze and she was back under the spotlight, the stink of blood overpowering, and the manacles digging into her wrists as she strained to reach— _to reach…_

A meaty smack brought Leith out of the shadows of memory and back to reality. Tuning in just in time to see the raven-masked leader shaking his hand out after punching the noble square in the center of his ugly mug.

There was a distinctly man-shaped crater in the wall above where the noble lay, pieces of stone and decorative brickwork tinkling to the floor. As for the nobleman, he was down for the count, his rotund body crumbled on the ground like a sack of potatoes, disproportionately thin limbs splayed wide.

Leith blinked dumbly, feeling oddly disconnected as her anger subsided like a snuffed candle and she slumped in the doberman guy's arms, thoroughly confused.

" _Fuck_ , is his skull made of iron or something?" the Raven hissed, rubbing at his knuckles. He sounded disgruntled, but there was a hint of real anger in his words, simmering under the surface.

"Yigigigigi! Did you hurt your hand, Partner?" the one with the sombrero and a shiba inu mask questioned, visibly chuckling at his boss's predicament.

"Shut up, Eights!" he barked, swiping a hand at the other man, who deftly ducked with a chortle.

 _Have I ended up in some bizarro reality?_ Leith wondered, observing the antics of the two men as they jeered and snapped at one another; far too casual to be real nobles. She was so engrossed that she didn't even notice when Doberman released her arms and placed his hands on her shoulders, giving them a comforting squeeze. Nor did she take note when the lion-dog-masked one with a mane of curly hair gently asked if she was alright.

 _Is this real?_

"You—you," the noble sputtered, making everyone collectively jump. The man was remarkably conscious again and staggering to his feet, knees nearly knocking together as he attempted to stand straight.

Blood and tears mixed seamlessly as he lifted his head, his pudgy pig-like nose decidedly broken and turned up grotesquely. Several teeth clattered to the floor as he squealed, "How dare you hit me bare-han...ded…"

A noticeable silence descended as Matchlock trailed off, gaping openly at the Raven's plainly bared fist.

To be fair, the masked man was also looking at his hand, inspecting it every which way as if he'd never seen the thing before.

"N-n-n-no gloves!" the noble stammered, pointing an index finger at the other man as if it were a damning sentence. He brandished the same appendage to the rest of the men—and for some reason, Leith— his toad-like mouth gabbling silent words as his directing hand started to quiver.

Leith blinked owlishly, taking a moment to actually look and see that they indeed were not wearing the white satin gloves that most noblemen and women favored. Come to think of it, she'd never seen them take the things off.

"Intruders!" Matchlock screeched, making the group collectively jump again, "Intruders in the palace!" The object of her torment scrabbled back, his pudgy form wobbling before he tore down the hall at a surprisingly brisk jog.

Leith didn't even know a man that round could run so fast.

The hall echoed with his screams of "intrudeeeers" that steadily faded into the distance.

"What the hell, Partner? You were supposed to knock him out!" the sombrero bandito—or rather, Eights—bellowed, breaking the group's stunned silence, pointing accusingly at the retreating nobleman's back.

"Yeah!" Another man piped up, the black beard beneath his Rottweiler mask in full bristle—Leith didn't even know that was possible. "How the hell do you manage to _punch someone sober_?!"

"Fuck off! And how am I supposed to know?!" the Raven cried, clearly agitated. He stared back at his hands, flipping them back and forth and clenching them into fists before releasing. "He should have been pushing up daisies with how hard I hit him!"

"Cap'n, now's not the time to be worrying about this," rumbled the huge, round man with notable mutton chops around his Bulldog mask. "We need to make tracks, ASAP!"

"Oh shit! Right!" the Raven exclaimed in concern, "He's gonna rat us out!" Flailing about in a brief moment of panic, he grabbed up the nearest abandoned sack, and bolted past everyone, shouting, "Follow me!"

Leith, during this entire fiasco, gawked like a virgin seeing a nude bicyclist brigade for the first time. She didn't think she had a fever. And she was damn certain no one had slipped her something while she wasn't looking. _I'm dreaming. I must be dreaming. My insomnia has finally caught up and I'm ass up in my cell, asleep._ Absently, she pinched her arm.

Only to get swept up like someone's spare luggage and finding that the hallway was flying by ridiculously fast as the man carrying her _hauled ass_.

It took her brain a couple of seconds of processing to become indignant. "I—Wait—What is— _YOU!"_ She thrashed, recognizing the man that currently had her slung under his arm was the very same one who'd captured her before. He seemed not bothered at all by her extra weight, despite carrying a heavy bag of his own. "Put me down right now!"

Doberman made a show of thinking about it, humming to himself even as Leith shrieked in terror when they heel-turned and vaulted over a balcony railing, falling several feet to a lawn below. The loud resounding gong of a bell and the jolting impact when the man landed smothered any response that he could have mustered. Obviously, someone sounded the alarm.

Distantly, the calls of whistles—palace guard whistles—chirruped between the claps of the larger bell.

"Aw shit, this is going to attract the Marines," someone said to her right. She couldn't see him due to Doberman's body blocking her line of sight, but it sounded like the guy with the beard.

"You think?" Doberman grumbled, seeming none-too-pleased at the concept. He rounded the corner of a hedge sharply, making Leith heave for air momentarily as his momentum crushed her diaphragm. She didn't even get the chance to admire the garden they'd found themselves strolling through before they were sprinting off again.

Shouts and the rattling of a door somewhere nearby caught her attention, but she couldn't see anything of the sort nearby. The trimmed hedges of the garden were too high.

Skidding to a halt, Doberman stood before a tunnel leading underground. He called out to get the Raven's attention, before the other man could dive in first, "Captain."

When the man in question turned to look, Doberman grabbed the front of Leith's shirt and shoved her ass-first at him. "Take the little spoon," was what he said before plucking the bag off of the Raven's back to make his load lighter.

"Excuse me?!" Leith snarled, feeling insulted, then yelped when the Raven accidently brushed her chest as he tried adjusting her into a shoulder carry. "Oi! Watch where you're grabbing!" she demanded, as she was swept away into the dark.

He grunted as her sharp elbow jabbed into the back of his skull, "S-sorry!"

"You're supposed to woo a woman before you cop a feel, jackass" she snarked, feeling some smug satisfaction when the man choked in embarrassment. Leith continued her flailing to be set down, hating to be carried and over all wanting to get as far away as possible.

"S-shut up, you're distracting me! And _damn it_! Stop struggling and let us rescue you!" the Raven yelped, cursing under his breath when her struggles pushed him shoulder-first into a wall.

"Watch it!" she snapped, jostled around by his mistake. "And since when was this a rescue? Who the hell _are_ you people?"

"We're pirates!" the group of six replied as one, making Leith flinch. She hadn't realized they were all crammed into this hole, too distracted, confused, and pissed off to really take note of her surroundings.

Leith allowed herself to go limp, taking a breather after the Raven proved to have just as strong a grip as the other guy, maybe even more so. She got the feeling she was going to have the bruise the size of Canada on her stomach no matter what she did, what with all the bouncing around and shoulder bone _in her diaphragm._ It was already aching something fierce.

Claustrophobia niggled at her brain like a persistent gnat, the confined space combined with too many people hitting just a little too close to home for her liking. An unpleasant reminder of the early days in the cells.

At least in the dark she couldn't hallucinate properly.

Then she blinked, tuning back into their conversation. "Seriously? Of all the things to fall into... It's with _pirates_?"

"Yup!" Raven said cheerfully, like it wasn't a damn thing to be concerned about, picking up speed as the dim light began to brighten up the corridor, indicating they were coming to the end of the tunnel. "But don't let that bring you down, Spoons, we're the good guys!"

"Right," Leith scoffed disbelievingly, crossing her arms as her eyes adjusted, feeling much better now that she was out of the dark and damp.

At this distance and at the lower angle in relation to the bell tower, the toll didn't sound as imminent, creating the illusion that they were farther away than they actually were. It calmed her nerves. She'd never made it outside the palace walls in her previous escape attempts.

Though it still irked her that she needed any help at all.

Wrinkling her nose, Leith glared as the passage revealed the other five members of the crew, one man at a time. She amused herself by imagining that she was squishing their heads with her index finger and thumb.

Then she sputtered as her personal transport's words finally registered, her lack of sleep making her reactions to things outside of an adrenaline high molasses slow. "What the _fuck_ did you just call me?"

"Eh? Oh, Spoons?" he asked, clearly confused that it took her so long to react, before giving a flippant shrug that rattled her around on his shoulder like a bobblehead, "That's your name isn't it?"

"Hell no!"

"Ahahaha! Well, it is now!"

xXx

Ace's impression of Spoons was a bit of a mixed bag.

On one hand she was feisty and clever. A sharp wit paired with a sharp tongue that didn't hold back on the lashing. And _boy_ could she dish it out. Didn't seem to have even a lick of fear on who was on the receiving end either.

On the other hand though…

"Put me down, you inbred neanderthal!"

She was _mean_.

"Ow! _Shit!_ Owowowow! _Damn it_ , Spoons!"

All of that feistiness would have been more endearing if she wasn't directing all of it into biting him.

"Depths take you, woman! I'm trying to help!" Ace roared, his boot heels screeching on the pavement as he rounded an intersection. The infuriating woman in question still draped over his shoulder, with her teeth firmly clamped into the fabric and skin below his shoulder blade.

Distantly, the sounds of pursuit could be heard on the terrace above. Shouts and the clomping of boots echoing out into the night.

His crew, after exiting the servant's access, had split up into pairs to throw off the search parties. But from the looks of things every palace guard and Marine were on the prowl, blocking off main roads and in general making their escape difficult.

So in conclusion: things were looking dicey.

"I can run just fine myself!" Spoons snapped a reply, letting go of his tender flesh in exchange for snarling at him. "You're being too loud!"

" _I'm_ being loud?!" he shouted, voice reverberating through the street they'd just stumbled into. Ace peered around, looking for any other access to the next road, the drop too high for the both of them to land safely. So far, he wasn't finding anything. He shrugged in an attempt to keep the woman from falling, making her to grunt when his shoulder dug into her stomach. "You're the one who's yelling and carrying on!"

"Well excuuuuuse me, Princess!" she snarked, huffing and grunting as she tried to adjust her position, probably to get into a stance to kick at him again. Clearly, she was feeling more awake than the worrying levels of lethargy she'd begun to display back at the tunnel. "You'd be pissed off too if you were basically kidnapped! I was doing _fine_!"

"Kidnapped?!" Ace cried out, aghast. From what he'd seen back at the palace this woman was in dire need of liberation. It was clear from the moment he laid eyes on her that she'd been abused extensively and from the lovely snippet of conversation he gathered with the noble, been forced to participate in some sort of gladiatorial event.

And if the way her eyes sometimes turned hazy wasn't concerning enough, she sometimes looked about like she was… _seeing_ things. He saw Eights do a similar thing once when he volunteered (demanded despite protest) to try some exotically colored mushrooms.

 _If anything, this is a rescue,_ he brooded, ignoring the insistent prodding finger that was jabbing his backside, too distracted by his troubled thoughts to pay Spoons any mind at the moment. _As if I'd allow the woman of my dreams to stay in this terrible place._

He blinked.

 _Wait… that came out wro—_

"Left!" he heard Spoons squawk urgently, sidelining his corrective thoughts. His center of gravity abruptly shifted as she threw all of her weight against his head—or more specifically—her ass in his face, skewing the mask in the process.

Blinded, Ace found himself falling, his boots snagging on the pavement. He tried to throw out an arm to catch himself but only found empty air. Gunshots zipped around them like angry hornets, ricocheting off the walls and narrowly missing Ace's scalp. A single bullet punctured the beak of his brittle mask, shattering it.

"Shit!" he yelped, tumbling end over end down the stairs, all porcelain shards and flailing limbs. He wasn't really thinking when he scooped Spoons up in his arms mid-descent and used his body to shield her from most of the fall. Ace hissed and groaned with every impact, the sharp edges of the steps battering his body, the woman spitting and cursing as she took her share of the damage.

It seemed to take ages for them to reach the bottom.

When they finally managed to roll to a stop on blessedly flat ground, Ace gave a pained groan and hoisted himself up on shaky limbs so he wasn't crushing the woman with his weight. "Why did you do that?" he asked plaintively, grimacing as it felt like every inch of his body ached, "If you really wanted to kill me, at least give me some warning."

"Is it too much to ask to not want a bullet in the face?" Spoons retorted, her eyes scrunched closed as she shifted, giving her own moan of pain when her hands inspected her own wounds, "This way we both avoid becoming…" A guttural groan issued from her throat as she yanked a mask fragment from her arm, fresh blood welling up from the new wound. She discarded the piece with a tired flick of her wrist, the porcelain chiming as it sprung away. "...Lead pincushions," she finished and went limp, clearly giving up any attempts to stand and taking the time to catch her breath.

"Yeah? Well, the warning part still stands," Ace griped, glaring at Spoons before his expression softened upon seeing her pinched face. "Are you alright?"

"Peachy," she snorted, blinking open bleary eyes to stare at the sky, an amused quirk to her lips. "You don't need to worry your pretty birdy head." Then she looked into his eyes, her own widening comically before she choked on her words.

Ace furrowed his brows, confused at the wide-eyed stare. He glanced cautiously about them, but when nothing announced itself as particularly threatening he turned back. "Is something wrong?"

It doesn't even register at first that his mask is gone.

" _You!_ " The significance of that exclamation was not lost on him. The shock and awe in her voice a strange contrast to her (literally) biting mindset not long ago. Spoons gazed at him like she couldn't fathom he was real. Like he was yet another one of her hallucinations. Her hand rose hesitantly to press against his chest, feather light at first then with more pressure.

It was what she said next, however, that was nothing short of unexpected, sending a chill down Ace's spine. "Are you— _No_. That's—That's impossible... _Ace_?"

 _How—?_ Ace couldn't even begin to articulate what he felt at this revelation, his brain scrambling to understand the implications of this. _Has she heard of me? Of us?_ he questioned, gawking down at the woman who was currently pulling off a decent impression of a fish, _We don't even have a bounty yet. What does it mean if she knows me on sight?_

Spoons' expression twisted into something akin to what Luffy would look like when constipated, her eyes hazy with confusion. She looked absolutely lost. "What the fu—"

Shouts down the street made them both flinch, shattering the moment. Cursing under her breath, she attempted to wiggle free from their tangled position, but Ace seized her shoulders and pinned her to the ground, ignoring her flinch. "Wait a minute, do I know you?" Ace asked, his voice faint.

That dream was going to haunt him forever.

"Like hell!" she snarled, and like a flipped switch, the old her was back. Eyes clear and sparking. Next he knew, she was roughly punting him with a foot jammed hard into his lower diaphragm, forcing him to expel the air from his lungs.

He recovered quickly enough, having brawled with wild animals, his brothers, and the Old Man ever since he was a child. But that didn't prevent him from coughing a fit as he tried to catch his breath.

"What was _that_ for?!" Ace wheezed, lurching up to grab at the woman, having been bowled back by the force of her strike, as she scuttled away from him like a crab.

"Get your scrawny ass up, we gotta bounce!" Spoons shouted, having already scrambled out of his reach and on her feet. Bolting further away when the silhouettes of their pursuers appeared on the street above.

"So you kick me?!" he roared, giving chase. Flames beginning to sputter around his shoulders. _I swear, this woman—_

"Quit your bitching and _hustle_!" she snapped over her shoulder, too-large coat sleeves flapping as she pumped her arms. "I'm not gonna to be responsible for when you get shot like a jackass!"

And right on cue, a bullet whizzed by Ace's ear causing him to yelp in surprise and quicken his pace. He smashed a hand to the top of his head, more out of habit than anything, a reflex to keep his hat in place as he ran. Though without a hat, he figured he probably looked rather silly, so he thought better of it.

Longer legs easily overtook Spoons shorter, quicker strides and Ace flung out an arm to grab her hand as he passed, hearing her squeak in surprise when his momentum broke her stride. He ignored the way the scabs chafed and flaked against his fingers, the feeling of something wet dripping between their grasped appendages.

"I can run—"

"Just shut up for a minute!" Ace interrupted testily, swinging into the nearest alley. Rearing his unoccupied fist back, he gathered his flames down the length of his arm and punched, his eyes on the nearest crew of gunmen.

" _Hiken!"_

A column of orange fire rocketed from his hand, blazing a fiery path through the squad of men like a comet, exploding into a shower of flames once it struck the terrace wall. The guards shrieked in terror as the blaze spread to the nearest buildings and trees, the sheer heat of the attack lighting up anything dry like matchsticks.

Ace turned a proud smile over to Spoons, only to be met with a dour look.

"You realize," she drawled, her expression the epitome of unimpressed, "That you just gave away our position to every bloody Marine and palace butt monkey in the area, right?"

Blinking owlishly, Ace tilted his head, listening for the tell-tale signs of reinforcements. And sure enough, he was not disappointed. He heard a man loudly exclaim nearby to prepare a firing line and to not allow the "pirate scum" to escape.

" _Oh,_ " he said, shoulders slumping.

"Yeah."

"I didn't think of that."

"Clearly," Spoons snarked, before rolling her eyes and giving the hand still holding hers an insistent tug, the link now sticky with blood, "Come on, snap out of it, Turbo. If you've got time to mope, then you have time to come up with a plan to get us out of here."

A wicked smile curled Ace's lips and he gave Spoons a mischievous glance. "Do I look like the planning kind of man to you?"

Spoons gave sullen glare, her shoulders tensing when the pounding of many feet surrounded each end of their alley. "Frankly, you don't look like a _man_ at all, but that's just my opinion," she stated, stepping closer when several lines of soldiers appeared, their white and blue uniforms a dead giveaway on their identity.

"Ouch, you're breaking my heart," Ace mocked, clenching her hand in reassurance, forgetting for a brief moment that her hands are injured before letting go abruptly at her pained hiss. His palm came away more damp than before, but he couldn't focus on that right now. He'd apologize later. Sliding into a more aggressive stance, he put himself between the Marines and her, the alley wall at their back. "I don't think I'll ever recover."

"You'll live," she muttered, fiddling with something that he couldn't see. He heard the jangle of something metallic.

Several clicks raised the stakes of their predicament, the cavernous eyes of multiple musket barrels trained on their position, the metal reflecting in the fire light.

Ace had to wonder how they could even see in the pervading dark. _I can barely see Spoons' face let alone any details on these mooks,_ he thought, peering at the upper road only to grimace as several men and women from the surrounding houses arranged a bucket brigade. _Though maybe the new lighting arrangement helps…_ From what he could see some of the more responsible citizens were salvaging what they could. While others were simply panicking and just in general being no help whatsoever. _Crap, I really fucked that one up._

"Halt!" an authoritative voice barked in the gloom. He sounded far too young to be a senior officer, probably a rich snob pulling favors from daddy's wallet.

"We _are_ halted," Spoons answered dryly, sounding bored and absolutely done with everything, "Unless you see something we don't... Though if _that's_ the case, why the hell aren't you sharing?"

Ace snorted a laugh. _That's rich coming from you._

"Silence!" the soldier shouted, seeming flustered by the accusation in spite it being clear the woman's accusations had been in jest. "You are under arrest! Throw down your weapons!"

There was a definite smile behind Spoons' next words, though Ace had no doubt about the maliciousness behind it. "Oh, I'll throw them down, officer," she purred, and then he heard the distinctive sound of a pin being pulled.

 _Wait…_ Ace froze, turning woodenly to give the woman an incredulous stare. He looked down at her hands. _Pin…_ he thought weakly, blinking down at the very real and very armed bomb collar in her hands.

"Weapons down!" the officer screeched, his voice cracking.

"You want my weapons?! Here you go!" Spoons bellowed, lobbing the collar at the squad like a frisbee. "Get fucked!"

The metal disk arced, landing with an ping at the group of soldiers' feet, rolling precariously on its side like a coin. As one, the squad followed the collar with their rifles in apparent mystified confusion, as they were unable to properly identify it in the dim light. They comically observed the spectacle until it anticlimactically toppled full stop with a clink.

Ace ducked over Spoons, tucking both their heads down.

"What is it?"

"That was all?"

"That was a really crappy throw…"

"Doesn't look like any weapon I've ever—"

The resulting explosion was bright enough to temporarily blind anyone who didn't have to sense to cover their eyes. Screaming on the other end of the alley told Ace that group of guards hadn't been as lucky.

So he took full advantage of their misfortune.

" _Hiken!_ "

Another blast of fire, erupting like a fledgling volcano and roaring even louder than the bomb, spewed forth from his outstretched fist. It deadened the yowls of burning men and Ace took this as an opportunity to escape, catching Spoons by the arm and leading her unharmed through the inferno at speed.

They sprinted along the city boulevards, winding and weaving through the courts and avenues, keeping their path unpredictable but always heading down. Ever closer to the docks.

Ace steadied the woman every time she stumbled, her breath coming in uneven gasps as her stamina finally lagged. He didn't say anything when she'd curse at a blank wall or lash out at empty air, she seemed aware enough of her problem. Ace supposed he should have been surprised she'd even lasted so long, but at this point figured she was running on sheer willpower alone.

It would only be a matter of time before she collapsed.

"Shit…"

True to his prediction, Spoons' legs crumpled and Ace couldn't hold back a wince when he didn't quite catch her in time, her knees crunching into the pavement. It sounded like it hurt. Looked like it hurt. She was probably hurt… "Ah— Damn it, Spoons, I'm sorry! Are you okay?" he fussed, letting go of her arm and kneeling so that he could inspect her face.

"Ugh," she grunted between breaths, flicking one eye open to glower at him before rolling it closed, "I'm okay. I just need— _hah—_ need to rest for a moment."

He grimaced, scanning the rows of warehouses, storage shacks, and the fire in the distance. "Yeah, about that… We don't really have the time for this."

Spoons huffed a humorless laugh, her head bowed and eyes shadowed. "Then go. I clearly can't stop you."

Ace's expression hardened, lips thinning into a straight line. "I'm not going to leave you," he said seriously, his voice rough. "Where you go, I go."

Eyes snapping wide, the woman gave him a look of pure disbelief, her mouth parted in surprise. She struggled to formulate words, her jaw clenching and opening several times before she finally managed a strangled, " _Why?_ "

There was no easy answer for that. He _could_ not answer that without sounding utterly barking mad. How could he tell her? What should he say? Where would he even begin? Blatantly, admitting he had a prophetic vision was high on the list of creep material, he imagined. There was no way he could answer that with the truth.

So he didn't.

"Why not?" Ace deflected.

"You don't even _know_ me," she insisted, gazing imploringly into his eyes, like she expected to find something. He wasn't sure what.

"Maybe I want to try," he murmured.

Spoons stared gobsmacked, like he spoke in the language of Sea Kings or maybe even grew a second head, before she burst into amused laughter. It didn't sound pleasant. Too high and tinny. A stark contrast to her speaking voice, which was throaty and unnaturally rough.

It didn't take a genius to know that it came from screaming, her performance at the palace was evidence enough.

Her laugh was sardonic, and maybe a little unhinged, but shoulder shaking all the same. When her mirth finally trailed off to die, she pinned him with a scowl, her smile slipping from her face like a second skin. "You don't know what you want," the woman sneered, her eyes reflecting the distant flames with a hollow light, a swirling abyss from which nothing could return. True despair. "You're too many years too young to even fathom the concept, let alone grasp it," she spit, her veneer twisting in displeasure, "And I don't need your pity, _boy_."

The words came unbidden from his mouth before he could stop them, his mind haunted by the shadow of a different scene. Of a different place. "Do you believe in destiny?" Ace whispered, the phrase like a seeping poison, stinging his lips more than any bite of a serpent.

It felt damning.

But she reminded him of someone none too long ago. A ten year old boy in a mountain forest, hating all of the world and himself (he still hated himself, but it was less than before—Luffy needed him after all). He could see the self-loathing in her eyes, the hatred for all the injustice in the world. It was an expression he was intimately familiar with, seeing it in the mirror every day before he met Sabo.

 _Sabo._

" _I'm going to become the freest person in the whole world! Do you want to be my friend?"_

He grit his teeth.

They were standing on the precipice of something. Ace wasn't sure what exactly, but he could feel it nonetheless. It loomed before them like a ravine, cavernous and ancient, waiting for them to take the plunge.

Standing in Sabo's place, Ace felt those childish words resonate. A distant memory, but the dream lived on. Extending his arm, Ace offered the woman his hand, his expression serious as he said, "What I want is to surpass the Pirate King, to make the world know my name, and to be the freest man in all the seas."

They were on the edge.

"Will you come with me?"

Her expression shifted from open hostility, and instead regarded him with cautious bemusement. The woman's brow quirked before she huffed a chuckle, this one sounding more pleasing to the ears. "I have to say, this is the weirdest proposal I've ever gotten," she murmured teasingly, eyebrows wagging as her voice turned into a husky drawl, "I don't think the girls stand a chance, Romeo."

Ace sputtered, completely derailed and withdrawing his hand so quick one would have thought she bit him. Which really wouldn't have been too surprising. He didn't know who the hell this "Romeo" was but it didn't take a genius to know she was flirting with him. "Wha—that's…" he stuttered, before stomping his foot like a petulant child, because it was clear she did it to throw him off. "Damn it! I was being serious here!"

"Oh, I know," she deadpanned, and he had to wonder how she did that. It was like she was flipping through den den mushi channels in her brain or something. She stood without his assistance, her knees wobbling for a moment. "And I have to decline. It'd be best if you didn't get attached, after all." Turning her back to him, Spoons appeared to be surveying their surroundings, her tone flat as she continued, "I'll be getting off at the next habitable island and washing my hands of all this business."

"Yeah, I doubt that," Ace said confidently, his embarrassment forgotten as an impish smile crawled onto his face. He was feeling the beginnings of a challenge rearing its head. "I'll just have to make it so you never want to leave."

"Is that a threat?" she practically purred, and Ace almost took back his words right then and there, because the gleeful predatory leer she gave him was suddenly more daunting. The lighting, combined with her grimy appearance only highlighted the ghastly expression.

And he thought the old fossil at the party was terrifying.

But he never went back on his word, damn it.

"No, it's a promise, Spoons," Ace stated. And he meant every word.

Her countenance softened considerably, and the genuine smile she gave him held a shred of approval. "Bring it on, Cowboy," she challenged, before taking a breath, pausing, and frowning thunderously, "And my name is _Leith_ , you twit."

xXx

Paramour's summit burned brightly, Ace's flames spreading faster than the people could contain, reaching the walls bordering the Ivory Palace. It shined like a beacon, the white stone reflecting the fire with an eerily ethereal glow, the sky bleeding crimson with the intensity.

It was like staring at a painting come to life. Like the old relics of the Great London Fire she'd seen in museums back in her old world.

Breathtaking, would have been one word to describe it.

Meanwhile, Leith scowled as her gangly mount bucked and hurtled about like a possessed chimpanzee as he performed the most unorthodox parkour she'd ever seen—or felt rather. Admittedly, she didn't know exactly how the two of them looked with Ace carrying her piggyback while she clung to him like a scruffy limpet. But she could only imagine that the image looked… lewd at a certain angle.

So of course she had to voice her opinions aloud.

"Objectively, our positions probably look wrong to an outside source," she drawled, giving an involuntary grunt when Ace landed particularly hard after a long fall, her chest thudding against the man's back.

"Excuse me?" Ace asked, confused. He readjusted his hold on her thighs before shifting them back to the previous position, heedless of the fact that his hands were getting even more filthy with blood and who knows what else. She was moderately impressed that he was able to keep a straight face in light of her ever present stink, but perhaps he had other things on his mind. "I'm carrying you correctly… Are you hurting somewhere?"

"Never mind," Leith grumbled, displeased that her joke had gone right over his head. Embarrassing the man was turning into an entertaining sport, but he was still innocent enough ( _shit, he's gotta only be about eighteen_ ) that a lot of things went over his head.

She idly batted at a mirage, blinking her eyes hard when it proved to be persistent. _Christ, I'm coming down so hard right now,_ she lamented, the adrenaline high no longer able to fuel her actions or keep her sleep deprivation at bay.

It was why she collapsed earlier, her body no longer able to keep up with her demands.

"If you say so," he said, bounding over another set of stairs and letting the matter drop.

Leith hummed noncommittally, eyes falling half-lidded as she rested her head between Ace's shoulders. The fabric of the suit felt smooth against her face and the subtle spice of an unfamiliar cologne relaxed her nerves, which admittedly had been frayed since the entire debacle began. Doubly so upon learning that she was in _One Piece_ of all things.

 _The snails should have tipped me off,_ Leith contemplated, blinking languidly as her eyesight wavered and fuzzed, the dim red light of the burning city winking in and out at the borders of her vision. For the first time in ages, she felt safe.

Her eyes drifted closed.

"You know, you've been acting differently ever since my mask broke."

Leith snorted to full wakefulness, her spine tensed like a coiled spring. The warehouses loomed threateningly over them, the dark windows akin to empty eye sockets. The smell of brine and dead fish pinched her nostrils, indicating they were finally close to their destination.

Almost. She almost fell asleep.

In an emergency situation.

 _On_ Portgas D. Ace.

 _Bloody hell, I kicked Portgas D. fucking Ace in the kisser and of all things he says that?!_ Leith internally flipped out. She hadn't realized that she'd become more amiable since finding out his identity, it just came naturally. But to anyone else, that would seem immensely suspicious, especially if they didn't know you personally.

She swore that his perception was shittier than this.

"Acting different how?" she questioned carefully, despite her misgivings, voice gravelly from interrupted sleep. _Trap. Trap. This feels like a trap._

"Well," Ace started hesitantly, then hummed tunelessly as he mulled over his words.

He hemmed.

He hawed.

He did both.

Leith thought she was going to die of heart failure if he didn't speak up soon and it was several more tense moments before he finally decided to open his mouth. "You've been… friendlier? Less bitey?" He made a show of thinking about it, letting go of her leg to scrub his chin. "Yeah, definitely less bitey."

She nearly swooned in relief. _Oh, thank God! He's a dumbass!_

If she was going to have to explain how the hell she knew his name, _before_ coming up with an excuse, Leith was going to kill someone.

Relaxing, she stared at the back of the man's head, a mischievous smirk worming its way across her face. She needed a way to keep him off her trail and what better way than the age old sport from her old world? Pester the Virgin. "So… is this a complaint? Do you _want_ me to bite you more?"

He stopped walking, turning his head to pin her with an equally bewildered and disturbed wide-eyed _look_. "... No?"

"You hesitated~" Leith sang, grinning toothily as his expression dissolved into dawning realization, then blushing mortification. She bit her lip to hold in her laughter. _Shit, if I can see his complexion darken even in this lighting, his face must be ridiculously red._ She went in for the kill, leaning forward even as he angled his torso with a grimace on his face to escape her leer. "Thought you were supposed to be a big bad ladykiller, Hotshot?"

Now it was his turn to flounder. "I wasn't— That wasn't—" He made a whimpering noise when words failed him.

"You know," Leith continued lightly, looking down at the man who was almost bent double even as he still dutifully held her on his back. She beamed at his pout. "You did say you wanted to make it so I'd never want to leave… If you want to seduce me into your crew, you're going to have to work on your technique."

If his face got any redder he was going to burst a vessel. "Gah— Shut up! Don't make fun of me!" he roared, indignant.

 _Ah shit, he was catching on..._

"Who's seducing who now?" a new voice piped up through their comedy routine.

Both turned to regard the newcomer, the man materializing out of the shadows of the nearest street like a phantom. Leith tensed at his presence, unsure if he was friend or foe.

"T-Tex?" Ace stuttered, immediately identifying the interloper and straightening up from his duck-like stance, nearly headbutting her in the process. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you," he replied with a drawl. Leith blinked at the man's attire, the outfit appearing more in line with an Old Western TV show from her world rather than pirate infested waters. He even had somewhat of an _accent_. "Everyone made it to the _Wild Card_ except you. We were starting to get worried."

"Ah. Right…" Ace said, looking appropriately abashed. They _had_ taken quite the detour to get there, and a lot of that was without a doubt his fault if the blazing inferno in the background was anything to go by. "Sorry about that."

Ogling the new arrival, Leith still tried to wrap her head around the fact there was a _cowboy_ standing there. Or whatever the hell he was classified as now. _Cowpirate?_ Yes, she was aware that she was in the wacky world of _One Piece_ , but that still didn't make some of the weirder aspects any _less weird_. "So uh… you gonna fill me in on who the Clint Eastwood-wannabe is or…?"

"Clint who?" Ace asked, perplexed. Nearly spinning his head completely around like an owl.

"Greetings, ma'am," the man acknowledged, apparently feeling the need to fill the social void his captain was failing to, seemingly not the least bit bothered by her rudeness. He gave a polite bow at the waist which was decidedly _not_ cowboy-like. "My name is Ohldum Texas, First Mate of the Spade Pirates."

Leith _stared_. It was entirely possible she blacked out for a moment, because she could have swornshe heard the dial up tone as her brain crackled and whined trying to reconnect to reality. She was sure she was making a lovely impression. "Uh…" she started intelligently, before shaking her head and actually voicing what was on her mind, "I'm sorry. What did you say your given name was?"

"Texas," he repeated easily.

She keened, pinching the area between her brows. "Of _course_ it is," she muttered, gritting her teeth. _Christ Almighty, his name is a pun… When did my life turn into a slapstick comedy?_

"Also, Captain," Tex carried on, pointedly ignoring Leith as she struggled to come to grips with existence, "When you mentioned a delivery of flowers…"

"Yeah?" Ace said, tilting his head in question.

Tex's eyebrow twitched, the only outward negative reaction he seemed to be willing to give. "I was expecting more of a _bouquet_." Alright, so maybe not the only one, because that was definitely sarcasm.

Ace pouted. "But she looked so _sad_ ," he insisted, and at this point Leith was well and truly lost. Not that it really mattered but it was nice knowing what the fresh hell was happening.

"We aren't keeping them," the man said with some finality, like a father telling his son that he couldn't keep a kitten he found. The allegory seemed to fit the scene a little too well.

"As much as this conversation is proving to be an interesting evaluation of character, we really should get moving." Leith interjected flatly, scowling at the two bickering men. Not that she and Ace had been doing much better before.

"The Lady has a valid point," Tex praised, forging on even when Ace's disbelieving snort of "lady" interrupted him, "Our ship isn't docked far from here, and I'd rather avoid the Marines as much as possible. We'll be lucky if we don't get identified."

Performing a full body shrug, Ace hiked Leith higher up on his back and prepared to walk. "I guess we should get to it then."

Tex cleared his throat, before they could move on. "I've been meaning to ask, Captain…" he said, gesturing to… well everything. Hand waving as he motioned to both of them, top to bottom. "I don't want to assume anything, but can you explain what's going on here?"

Leith easily caught his meaning, though considering that she was more bedraggled and filthy than a ragamuffin, she was surprised that he even asked. Sure she'd been needling Ace with double entendres and straight up innuendo, but it was all in good fun and hardly serious. The guy was still basically a kid, after all and she was… whatever she was.

"Oh, Spoons?" Ace asked, nonplussed and completely missing the insinuation. Truly he was a precious cinnamon roll; too pure for this world. "She can't walk."

Leith gave him a glare. That summary did not sufficiently describe her problems. Also the brat refused to use her name, she was going to have to up the ante on the annoying nicknames if he didn't knock it off.

The cowboy hummed noncommittally, scratching at his stubble, "Your legs broken?" he asked, his tone almost sounding disbelieving.

Leith opened her mouth, about to be insulted at his implication that she was just being lazy, but caught herself when Tex gave Ace such an accusing glare he could have bored holes into his skull. As if the entire situation were his fault.

 _There's a story in there somewhere,_ she thought in wry amusement as Ace scowled, a silent conversation passing between the two.

Before things could devolve into another pointless argument, Leith decided to throw the poor man a bone. No pun intended. "Not broken, but they can't hold my weight," she informed him, then her pleasant expression melted into a frown, "Otherwise, I wouldn't be within ten feet of Ferret Face here."

"Ferret _what?!_ " Ace howled, probably contemplating on dropping her right then and there, if the tensed grasp on her legs were anything to go by. She idly wondered how far she would actually have to go in order for him to act on his impulses.

Her thoughts were discarded in favor of the resounding boom that broke through the air, the sound deep and hollow making her throw her hands over her ears.

When no explosion followed the sound, Leith opened a puzzled eye, slowly removing her crusty palms from her ears. "What the hell was that?"

"Cannonfire." Tex reported succinctly, his face set in a carefully constructed mask, eyes narrowing as he gazed in the direction the sound came from. He was concerned. "Sounded like it came from up ahead."

A barrage of blasts followed the first and that prompted the men to bolt into action, Leith almost toppling backwards with how fast Ace moved.

She didn't have to ask or see their faces to know they were worried for their crew, the silence and dead focus said it all. So she kept her thoughts to herself.

As they drew closer to the dock, the three ducked behind a collection of crates, observing with trepidation the sight before them. Leith heard Tex swear colorfully under his breath, while Ace clamped down on her thighs almost painfully.

"That's a lot of white," Leith stated helpfully, her tone bland. And indeed, standing in organized rows like a barricade was a small army mix of Marines and palace guardsmen, both wearing the signature white uniforms of their station.

Lips thinning, Leith's hands tightened on Ace's shoulders as she inspected the guards. Clearly they were taking precautions, but was it all to get her back? _That seems a bit excessive,_ she thought, her chest constricting and breath hitching, _I don't want to go back._

"Looks like the _Wild Card_ made it out," Tex whispered, pointing out at a dark shape on the water. The ship's form was nearly obscured by the distracting wildfire in the city's center, making it nearly impossible to pick out beyond the halo of light.

"Shit," Ace hissed, "That's way too far to jump."

 _No shit, Sherlock._ Leith brooded, feeling like that would be obvious. The ship looked to be, at the very least, a quarter of a mile out. There was no way in hell he was going to be able to jump that distance.

What concerned her though, was that Tex didn't even blink at the news, "I suppose, Miss Spoons and I could swim. And get the _Wild Card_ to swing closer."

Leith didn't even react at the addition to her nickname, too focused on one particular aspect of that sentence. She paled. "Suh-swim…?

Ace unwittingly came to her rescue, because he opposed the idea immediately, "Tex if she can't walk right now, how do you expect her to swim?"

"Well I haul you around just fine when you make your anchor impression," Tex declared, much to Ace's annoyance if his scoff was any indication, before giving a sigh, "I do see your point though, it would be faster if she could swim on her own."

"What about the cannons?" Leith asked weakly, diverting the conversation away from that particular topic. It was bad enough the ocean was looming not far from where they were sitting and— _Fuck, I'm going to be trapped in a giant wooden coffin!_

"What about 'em?" Ace shrugged, then cracked his knuckles, scrambling to grab Leith once he remembered he needed to hold onto her and she started slipping. "I can take care of these bastards, no problem!"

The resonant boom of a cannon sidelined her next inquiry, the shell rocketing out into the bay and splashing somewhere before the ship. A clear miss. Obviously, the cannoneers weren't having any luck hitting their target, though it also begged the question as to why their own ships weren't out in the bay.

"We sabotaged their ships," Tex stated, like he read her mind.

 _Well, that explains it,_ she thought, actually taking a moment to squint at the other marine vehicles, grunting in approval when she saw they were all listing to one side.

"So~" Ace drawled with a smirk, raising up a hand and igniting it, his fist glowing white. "Time for me to light things up?"

Tex's smile matched his captain's, eerily so. Leith, at that moment, finally understood why such a calm and collected man like him was on the Spade Pirates' crew; he was as mad as his boss. "Keep Miss Spoons safe, Captain," the man said, tipping his hat to her.

"I've done it so far, haven't I?" was the cocky retort.

And with that, Tex broke cover and dove off the dock.

Leith didn't even get a chance to admire the cowboy's swimming form before Ace decided he'd been idle enough. Rearing back, right fist raised and already alight, he punched with a roar:

" _Hiken!_ "

Previously, when he'd first pulled off his signature attack, it hadn't been nearly as powerful and Leith hadn't been close enough to really appreciate the heat. The flash of white and the roaring eruption a chaotic din in the cool night.

Now though… Now, she couldn't get far enough _away_.

Everything sweltered.

The air.

The ground beneath their feet.

Even the water hissed, transforming into steam, only for that to be burned away as well.

Leith choked as she huddled into the center of his back. Her arms tucked in and gripping the suit like a lifeline, her right knee driving into the small of his back as she attempted to put his torso between herself and what might as well have been hellfire.

It didn't help.

He _was_ fire. There was no escaping it.

Her brand burned anew and Leith stifled a cry by biting into the fabric of his suit. What tears she could muster evaporating shortly upon contact with the air. _It's not the same,_ she tried convincing herself, attempting the banish the shadows of memory, to dispel the feeling of a metal disk pressing into her flesh. The scent of burning hair was stifling, and Leith had to wonder if it was her own.

Explosions rumbled the earth as Ace ignited their munitions, the stones scattered at their feet rattling with each detonation, the dock at their backs creaking and groaning. Soldiers screamed through the onslaught, though their cries were deafened by the salvos.

Leith shook with every blast, her body quivering with aftershocks. It was taking all of her remaining strength to cling to man like a koala. His right arm, having been weaponized, doing nothing to hold her up anymore.

She didn't think much of it when Ace reached his left arm around to brace it underneath her, taking all her weight onto the single limb. Too distracted by her own demons.

 _The odor of burning flesh washed over her through the pain, choking her with its stink. She tried not to cry out, but couldn't help the warble of agony that erupted from her throat. They were holding her down, the chains taut as they seared their mark into her skin. Branding her as theirs._

 _A sickening voice slithered into her ear, whispering an all too familiar tune:_

' _Mad Mary, Mad Mary, so contrary,  
If only you could see.  
You can struggle and squirm,  
Like a contemptible worm,  
But you'll never escape from me.'_

" _Enjomo!_ "

Ace's bellow broke through the trappings of her mind, forcing Leith to surface into the present. She gasped audibly, like she'd been submerged in water and coughed in the hazy atmosphere. Blearily, Leith eyed the battlefield, blinking as she realized that everything was either in shades of grey or on fire.

Definitely missed most of it.

Surrounding their location, a veritable wall of fire soared to the heavens like a volcanic vent, blocking off any remaining soldiers.

Out on the water, Leith spotted the _Wild Card_ sailing closer to port, white water frothing around bow.

"There we go," Ace said cheerily, as if he didn't just commit mass murder, looping his right arm around to take back its place around her leg. "That should keep them busy enough. How you doing back there, Spoons?"

Leith went limp.

She had to hand it to him, his reaction was faster than she would have expected, though she could have done without the blind panic after he caught her.

"Ah fu— Shit! Spoons! Are you okay?" he hollered, fumbling as he tried to gently lower her into a more cradled position, crouching and using his knee as a brace to keep her off the still hot ground. When Leith didn't respond right away he practically lost it. "Spoons! No! Damn it, stay with me here! Spoons! Spoo—Fuck! Leith?! _Leith!_ "

The thought crossed her mind to let him continue carrying on like this. Currently, she was in such a sorry state of exhaustion that she would have been comfortable falling asleep even strung upside down. But the moment his voice broke when he said her name for the first time... She couldn't let it slide.

So she blindly threw her hand up and palmed his face.

"I'm not dead, dipshit," she growled, opening one unfocused eye to glower at him. Her hand slid off of his surprised face and fell limply into her lap. "I'm just… really tired."

"O-oh," he choked, and Leith had to wonder how he became so attached to her already. Attached, if you will, to a small, angry slave woman that kicked him in the head upon introduction, then bit him, insulted his intelligence, kicked him again, and… Alright, let's face it, she was not and will never be a charming princess.

But nevertheless, he was as stuck to her as white on rice and didn't seem intent on letting go.

 _He's going to make it difficult for me to leave isn't he?_ she mused, contemplating the way his freckled face twisted as he inspected her, what she imagined to be, sorry state.

She didn't tense when he stood from his crouch, hoisting her into a more snug position in his arms. Nor did she so much as twitch when he started running.

To her dying day, Leith will deny the shriek she bawled when she discovered that he'd catapulted them out over the water.

"ACE!"

Her heart thundering in her chest, caged in the arms of a crazy flame man, Leith knew she was going to die. It was inevitable. It was a _fact._ If she didn't get away from these people the first chance she got they were going to be the end of her. But maybe she wouldn't even get that far. Maybe she'd just die here. The damn ship was too far away. At the rate they were going they'd just crash into the water and Ace would sink like a stone. Leith didn't have the strength nor the swimming knowledge to bring him back to the surface, she would get dragged down—

" _Hiken!_ "

The blast of fire was more concentrated than before, creating a steady stream that gave the two some lift. Water hissed angrily beneath their feet as the flames collided with its opposing element.

They were arcing once again.

 _Falling with style, huh?_ she thought, her brain helpfully calling back to her childhood. Probably because she was finally losing it. She hated anything that moved too fast, be it speed boats or the roller coasters from her old world.

She will fully admit she was chicken shit.

A couple more sputtering flares later and they smashed headlong into the main sail, bouncing off and landing in a pile of something soft and sweet smelling.

It took her several moments to realize they were flowers. Roses specifically.

 _What in the fresh hell…?_

As Ace rolled away from her, chuckling like a crazy person, Leith lay stunned in the dethorned plants. _This is bullshit. Stupid, romantic bullshit only found in cheap romance novels and I hate it._

Leith stared at the cloudy sky, the clouds closest to the city bruising into purples and eventually reds. Around them, the shouts of the crew and the stomping of feet as they manned the sails created a strangely organized chaos. "You know…" she started, turning to look at the grinning madman at her side, "If I wasn't already convinced you are an idiot, I would think this was an attempt to seduce me," she murmured flatly, a very unimpressed expression on her face.

Ace laughed, turning on his side and holding his head up with an arm, clearly having enjoyed their short flight. Freaking adrenaline junky. "Oh, come on! You gotta admit that was pretty awesome!"

"Not the word I would use," Leith groaned, her vision starting to darken along the edges. "Hey, Ace?"

"Hm?"

"I'm warning you… right now." Her eyes rolled closed as she mumbled, "If you grope me in my sleep, I'm gonna break your arm."

"Wai—"

And she blacked out.

* * *

 **A/N:** Aaaand scene! Woo, this took a lot of struggle to get through and is the highest word count I've ever written for one chapter (13k holy cow!). Everyone give a round of applause to the wonderful Lang Noi for being my editor and go read her stories if you haven't~

If you want to shoot me an ask or just want to bounce around some fun ideas you can send me a message on my tumblr: **_fanfiction-by-abalisk . tumblr . com_** (without spaces of course) and I will answer as best as I can! I have fan art from my own work and for other people's fics over there too if you wish to peruse.

And as always, much loves and talk to you next time~


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** The title for this chapter comes from the lyrics of "Heavy" by Linkin Park because it works oddly well with Leith's mindset.

* * *

Chapter 3: Can't Escape the Gravity

The roar woke Leith with a scream on her tongue, her body shooting up into a crouch—ready for anything. The talons of her dreams left bleeding trails in her mind, blending delusion into reality. _Walls—unfamiliar—wooden—a hut. Room—dark—dusty—arena. Air—stale—sweat—an enemy._ She tensed, her mouth bared into a snarl, hazy eyes flickering over the uncertain shapes of worn furniture and the rib-like ceiling, the shadows creating phantoms that ate at the corners of her paranoid mind.

That growl rumbled again, and Leith flattened against the stiff bedding, her eyes wide. _Did they leave me with a creature again?_ she wondered, blinking through darkness, willing herself to see better and tilting her head this way and that like an owl.

She needed to hear _._ To smell. To see. To _feel_.

 _The air was wrong. She wasn't outside herself. Trapped in a cage. In her mind. In her body. Out. Out. Out. OUT!_

And then she could "see", the room thrown into stark bright relief, the shadows no longer yawning. Leith took a deep breath through her nose, the faint odors from before more pungent. _Male. Wood smoke. Fire._ Her skin tingled, the roar sounding out once more, rippling across her in waves and she inched forward.

It was here.

Below her line of sight.

Just over the edge...

She slunk to the precipice, her legs protesting the motion as she contorted into a spider-like crawl, creeping with careful precision to keep her movements nearly silent. The adrenaline pumping through her veins was as toxic as any drug, setting her heart thumping wildly at prospect of confrontation even as a twinge of fear crept down her spine.

Her hands were gnarled into claws, ready to pluck or tear as needed at the first sign of aggression. There was no telling what kind of animal it was, so she had to proceed cautiously.

Leith sucked in a breath, then peered over the edge…

At first, she thought her eyes were deceiving her again, that she was once more trapped within a delusion. The careless scattering of colors and shapes were confusing to her night-enhanced eyes, making her blink as they generated false forms and nonsensical phantoms. It took more observation and head tilting than would have been safe if it actually were a hostile animal, to figure out that it _wasn't_ some sort of eldritch abomination.

It was just a man sleeping in a pile of clothes.

Perched like a gargoyle, Leith leaned forward to sniff. She still couldn't quite make heads or tails on who it was, not with most color too washed out to see properly. But the smell of an old firepit and moldy clothes persisted, making her wrinkle her nose in distaste at the stale flavor it left on her tongue. She'd long lost the ability to smell her own odor, but that didn't mean that the scent of others' unwashed funk was any less unpleasant.

Leith's senses told her that the man was deeply asleep, his presence almost undetectable in slumber. However, his snoring completely cancelled out any vestige of stealth. The phrase 'sawing logs' coming to mind. It was this atrocious clamor that had startled her awake.

She snorted, eyes narrowing. He left himself vulnerable and open to attack, a deadly mistake in the Pit. All she would have to do is grab one of the longest strips of cloth and stuff it down his throat or push his face into the pile and smother him.

She'd done it before.

Her fingers twitched.

 _Kill him… before he gets me_ , she thought, hovering over the slumbering man before she even realized she crossed the room, her hand mere inches from his neck. Leith could faintly feel his pulse through the thin veneer of his skin, a steady beat. Strong.

 _Why haven't you killed me yet?_ she pondered, settling her bandaged palm over his throat, fingers tensed to squeeze. He'd apparently wrapped her injuries. Yet another mistake. There were no allies here. _Don't you know they'll just have us kill each other in the end? That only one can survive..._

Leith let out a soft hiss of breath, she hated doing this. The endless fighting. The jeering crowds. How many more throats would she need to tear out before she became free? How much more blood needed to be shed? How much longer must she fight to live another day?

 _I can't die,_ she thought, tightening her grip minutely, the man's breath beginning to rattle at the pressure, _I promised them I wouldn't die, that I would see the sun in their stead..._ Leith bit her lip, her shoulder and arm tensing in preparation for the fight when his brain smashed the panic button.

 _I'm sorry. Please forgive me,_ she begged, her head bowing so she could get one last look at the chivalrous fool's face. Planning to etch it into her memory, like she'd done for so many others. It was the least she could do—

Only to choke out a gasp and release him like she'd been burned. She recognized that boyish face.

It was Ace...

Her hands shook.

 _I just tried to kill him_ , she realized, staggering back, her feet nearly tripping up on the clothes. Leith stared in horror at his sleeping form, his face pressed deeply into the crotch of some undergarments, nose bent to the side.

Her breath came in ragged heaves as she stared at her hands, it was coming back to her:

Escape...

Pirates...

Chase...

Fire…

She was no longer a slave trapped behind the palace walls, to be used as entertainment in the nobles' bloody games. No more need she be concerned on when they would send _Him_ for a visit, breaking her mind to tiny pieces.

She was going to see the sun again.

She was _free._

It started as a slow chuckle, her body shivering in elation. Leith could hardly believe it. _I've won…_ she thought, her chuckles turning into deep chortles, _I've won. I've won! I've beaten them! I did it! I… I—I—I…!_ Leith clutched her face as the laughter grew, her spine bowing under the weight of her guffaws, her eyes stinging with tears.

Distantly, she heard Ace shift, but was too engrossed in her victory to notice. He might have posited a question…

But at this point, Leith's laughter was so unhinged that she couldn't control it, the sound roaring in her ears, her eyes wide. Her next thoughts were a tangled mess of horror at what she almost carried out and joy at the prospect of freedom.

Three youthful faces came to mind, all former slaves who had kept Leith company in the days since her arrival in this world. Two boys and a girl. All children she had grown attached to, who had suffered with her in the holding cells... Who had tried soothing her aching body when the conditioning grew too unbearable... Who had consoled her as she wept for those she'd killed…

' _You holding up alright, ya old hag?'_

 _Salem…_ Leith stumbled, and a voice shouted to her in alarm. She was still laughing.

' _Don't worry about me, Sis! I can take whatever they dish out!'_

 _Yuga…_ She threw open the door to the cabin, shoving away the reaching hands. Bright light blinded her and she stepped into the dazzling rays.

' _Someday, we'll all see the sun again… You'll see.'_

 _Juri…_ Light beat down upon her, a blazing sphere of gloriously relentless heat. Leith never imagined in her wildest dreams that it would be so beautiful.

' _It's a promise. We're a family after all, right? We just have to take it a day at a time and then... We'll be free, one way or another.'_

Her laughter stopped dead.

All was silent, the eyes of the entire crew were on her as she stood panting in the middle of the deck. The sky was clear and eggshell blue, not even a cloud marring the horizon. The air was pure of pollutants, the saline scent of the sea strong to her nostrils. The water…

Blue and deep. Vast.

A thrill of terror sped through her.

"Spoons…?" she heard someone ask, and Leith turned woodenly to see Ace standing a few feet behind her, his arm raised in a half-hearted reach. He looked uncertain, probably because she'd been laughing like a fucking maniac. A small part of her lamented that impression, but the rest of her that didn't give a shit won out.

 _I'm free..._

The sounds were overloading her senses, all just a little too loud to her deprived ears. The rolling waves breaking against the bow of the ship roared. The snap of the sails as the wind whipped through them. The creak of the boards under her feet. The raucous call of the gulls.

Leith trembled on the spot. It was all too much.

 _That's right… I'm on a ship,_ she thought, the world tilting under her feet. She felt sick and delirious.

There was _too much_ water...

"Spoo—"

Leith interrupted Ace by screeching at the top of her lungs, making him flinch like she slapped him. She didn't know why she did it, only that it felt good. Maybe it was to help drown out some of the noise. Or perhaps, it was to vent all the pent up frustration from her time spent in the nobles' clutches. She wasn't sure.

It wasn't even a proper scream either, since her throat was too dry and raspy to give it the correct pitch.

Later, she'd admit that she was a bit ashamed of how she handled it. As it was, the Spade Pirates got to observe as she _flipped the fuck out._

"Why the fuck am I here?! Why is there so much _water_?!" Leith screamed, pulling on her hair in frustration and pointing out at the ocean with an accusing finger.

"Spoons, I—"Ace started, only to stumble as her nonsensical words registered. " _W-what_?" he stuttered, clearly blindsided as she cursed and stomped about.

Leith grumbled under her breath pacing furiously across the deck, "This is _bullshit_. Of all the places to be sent to… it's here… _Here!_ What kind of fucked up, sadistic… Water! Ocean! A manga— _Really?!_ "

The other men scrambled away to let her pass as she searched for possible escape routes, a small man in a turban squeaking when she nearly bowled him over.

"Uhm… is there something wrong with the ocean?" one nameless brave soul asked, she'd have to give him a medal for his courage later. Absently, she noted that his beard was impressive.

But instead, she bit his head off. "Everything!" Leith snapped, pinning the man with a glare, "It's deep. It's damp! And there's—Too. Damn. _Much._ Of it!"

"Sp-Spoons, calm down…" Ace pleaded, inching forward like she was a pacing tiger in a cage. He looked really confused and Leith couldn't even blame him, she wasn't making any damn sense.

Not that Leith was going to try making it any easier, she was on a roll.

"Don't tell me to calm down! _You_ calm down!" she snarled, jabbing a finger at Ace, only to skip away when he tried to grab her, slapping his hand. "And stop touching me, you weirdo! What the hell is wrong with you?! Didn't you cop enough of a feel back at that damn city?"

Ace's face flushed scarlet and he sputtered indignantly, shoving his hands into his pockets like that would keep them from wandering, "T-that was an accident!"

"Sure~" Leith mocked, baring her teeth into the first real grin she'd had since waking up. It wasn't a very nice one, if his cringing reaction was anything to go by. "Next you're gonna tell me you didn't creep on me while I slept. What'd you do, watch me all night? _Pervert…_ "

Someone laughed in the background. It sounded familiar. Like a hyena.

The air around Ace started to shimmer with heat as he became more flustered. His face so red now that someone could have cooked an egg on it; and considering his Devil Fruit ability, it'd probably work, too. "I didn't—It wasn't like— _Shut up!_ What's wrong with _you_?!" he finally countered, a little late on the upkeep.

"What's wrong is I want off this boat, dumbass! What do you think?!" Leith snapped, then yelped as the ship dipped over a wave, her limbs flailing as she attempted to regain her balance. Nobody else moved.

 _Well that's embarrassing,_ she groaned, holding her head in her hands once everything evened out, her face paling significantly as her mouth tightened into a thin line. "Ohh~ fuck me sideways, I'm gonna hurl…"

"Please do so over the railing, I'd rather not have to clean up your vomit, Miss Spoons," the cowboy—Tex, that was his name—drawled, his expression flat.

"Spoilsport," she grumbled, flattening herself against the cabin's outer wall and swallowing down her bile. Leith refused to get anywhere near the edge of the ship if she could help it and she absolutely refused to allow them to see her get sick in front of them. She had _some_ dignity left. "Why the hell am I here anyway? I said I was going to get off on the next island," she said, trying to sink in and become one with the wood panels.

"You've only been asleep for a day," a dark-haired man replied, shrugging disinterestedly when she frowned at him, his yellow headband and goatee looked pretty damn familiar, "It'll take us…" he trailed off thoughtfully and turned to his largest crewmate, "Hey, Rummy, how long will it take us to reach the next island?"

"A week," a large round man with mutton chops replied. His voice was deep and his face looked like it was permanently pinched into a displeased scowl. He was wearing bright pink pants… Leith wasn't sure how that was relevant. "Provided the weather is willing."

 _A week!_ Leith blanched, her face contorting. _I have to live on this deathtrap for a week!_

She didn't like the sound of that. Not at _all._

"Not that you're gonna leave once we get there," Ace helpfully informed with a boyish grin, confidence dripping from his tone. "You're crew now, Spoons!"

Leith wanted to punch him.

"You smarmy little shit," she hissed, fingers twitching. If she hadn't wanted to throttle him before, she _definitely_ wanted to now. Though, Leith forced herself not to think about how close she'd come to actually following through with that impulse. Hiding away that scene into a box in the deepest darkest corner of her mind, she said, "You're ridiculously fixated on this."

"Don't you remember what I said back on Paramour?" he asked, interrupting her musing before she could delve too deep. He sounded strangely hurt, like she'd forgotten on purpose or something. The baffled expressions of his crew and the secretive looks they shot at each other didn't go unnoticed by her.

She grimaced, because no, of course she didn't forget.

"You mean that 'destiny' bullshit and making me want to stay?" she snarked, that uneasy feeling settling over her as she recalled his exact words. While the phrase 'do you believe in destiny' sounded like a shitty one-liner for picking up ignorant women, Leith knew for a fact Ace hadn't meant it that way. He'd been far too earnest.

Now that she thought on it, he never answered her question on _why_ he rescued her specifically, instead redirecting her attention to the whole 'wanting to surpass the Pirate King' shtick…

He was hiding something.

 _Damn it, I'm supposed to the one with all the secrets!_ Leith thought, eye twitching as she watched Ace's expression brighten, _I'm the dimension-hopping alien, not you!_

"Don't look too excited, shithead, you're making it sound like you proposed to me or something," Leith grumbled, pointing significantly at his crew, who were all gawking like they were watching some sort of soap drama. Her mouth quirked into a grin as the man— _boy, really_ —flushed and whipped around to address the problem he created.

Rummy, whose ever-present scowl shifted into a knowing smirk, crossed his arms and simpered with mock hurt, "When I asked if we were expecting to have a missus on board, Cap'n, you told me _'no.'_ Why'd you lie to me? That really stings."

Eights, the one who laughed like a hyena earlier, cackled and adjusted his sombrero. "Yeah, Partner, aren't we crewmates?"

"But 'destiny,' _really?_ " A man, who she hadn't seen before now, sniffed disbelievingly. He looked out of place in comparison to the rest of the men, wearing a top hat and had a rifle slung over his shoulder. Leith eyed him suspiciously, he looked too close in appearance to a nobleman for comfort. "Of all the pick-up lines we taught you, you go with that one?"

"P-pick-up—" Ace stuttered weakly, his shoulders igniting as he briefly lost control of his powers in his embarrassment, "That's not what it is at all!"

It made Leith wonder how long he'd actually had his Devil Fruit powers for. _Must not have been long if he lets loose so easily,_ she mused, eyeing the sputtering sparks.

"You don't have to deny it, Captain," Tex drawled, adjusting his cowboy hat to hide his eyes, though the large grin curling his lips couldn't be so easily hidden, "If you wanted a lady-friend you could have just told us instead of kidnapping one."

 _Holy shit, they're almost as bad as I am,_ Leith thought, her heart lifting at the prospect. She found her kindred spirits.

"You know," she interjected cheerily, her butt thumping down on the deck, a smirk of her own splitting across her face, "I think we're going to get along _just_ fine."

Ace, for all the world, looked like he was experiencing a personal hell or some sort of internal armageddon, because the stare he shot her was pure undiluted horror. "S-shut up! Don't encourage them!"

Leith laughed, his kicked puppy expression the straw that finally broke the camel's back. It felt good to laugh. To actually, genuinely let loose. It'd been far too long since she'd had a good one and her arena conditioning didn't count...

She observed the Spade Pirates' antics, and from what she saw they seemed to be a raucous bunch, shoving and elbowing each other as they joked at their captain's expense. Someone even had to gall to poke the flaming bear and mash Ace's hat further onto his head, making him squawk as they flattened it.

 _This is a good crew,_ Leith pondered, giving a real smile after her laughter died down into chuckles.

Her thoughts turned to her old companions and a stab of sorrow shot through her heart, making the moment bittersweet, her grin wavering. They were good people. Just like those kids. Too good for the cards handed to them.

 _All the more reason for why I shouldn't stay…_

Her throat tightened.

"Hey," she rasped, loud enough to stall the roughhousing, her audience giving her a mix of surprised expressions, "I haven't had the chance— well… I _have_ , but my head's been fucked up for so long that I forgo— Oh _hell,_ " Leith cut herself off, growling in irritation and shaking her head before beginning again, "I'm trying to say ' _Thanks_ ' alright?"

When they prolonged their staring, Leith squirmed. "I've been an ungrateful ass and you didn't have to help me—but you did anyway. So… _yeah_."

The silence continued and she grumbled, "Say something already!"

Tex chuckled good-naturedly, taking pity on her. "You're apology skills need work."

" _Ha ha_ ," Leith said sarcastically, before turning serious again, "But I mean it. Every word. I don't… I don't know if I ever would have made it out of there… Thank you."

The crew gave each other significant looks.

"T'weren't nothin', Spoonie," Eights drawled, his face nearly split in half with how large his grin spread, "You're too feisty to just leave alone."

"What he _means_ ," Rummy interjected before Leith could misinterpret those words, palming the other man's head and nearly pile-driving him into the deck with how much force he put into the action, "Is that we wouldn't have left you behind. Not in your state and especially with those scum." The big man's expression softened. "We're willing to help you, if you let us."

Leith felt her lips wobble and she glanced away from their earnest faces. "I don't… I can't stay here."

Ace was about to object with a terse, "That's bull—" but was interrupted before he could get the full sentence out.

Seven hands slapped over his mouth at once.

The one with the full beard grinned at Leith sheepishly, "Excuse us for a moment, ma'am, we gotta have a word with our captain. Just sit tight."

Blinking, Leith watched as the men bodily dragged Ace away, muffled protests sounding from his covered mouth, his struggling futile as all seven men wrestled him into the nearest cabin. The door slammed behind them.

The only one left was the familiar goatee guy.

He looked… 'unimpressed,' which was probably the kinder way to put it. A more accurate description would have been to say the guy was a practitioner of the famed 'resting bitch-face.' An expression that she wasn't sure existed in this world, but would be all too happy to introduce if it didn't. If only for nostalgia's sake.

Then again, maybe he actually _was_ irritated by something and no amount of wearing green pants with white spots could improve his mood. It certainly improved hers.

 _Those things are atrocious,_ Leith thought with glee, eyeing the patterned legwear that strangely went well with the ugly yellow sash around the man's waist and the chest-baring green button up, whose buttons were decidedly _not_ being used.

Not that she was going to complain; the guy had a rocking bod.

Incidentally, Leith realized she still wasn't wearing pants... She also wasn't really sure where she was going with that line of thought.

"Alfors Pitch," the man introduced himself with a bored drawl, simply bobbing his head in greeting like a bird, "We've met before."

Furrowing her brows, Leith tried to pinpoint where exactly she'd seen him, wracking her brain for all that the palace meeting had been a sort of blur. _Goatee. Yellow headband..._ Then it clicked.

"I remember," she grumbled, frowning as the man leaned against the doorframe next to her, "You thought it'd be funny to carry me around like a sack of potatoes… and started that ridiculous nickname." Leith scowled when he simply shrugged, as if such an act were absolutely normal. Though being as he was a pirate, and this was _One Piece_ , that was a very real possibility. "What the hell kind of nickname is _Spoons_ anyway?"

"To be fair, I only called you a 'little spoon,'" Pitch defended, giving her a flat stare, "It was the _Captain_ who decided to extrapolate."

Leith snorted, amused that the man so easily threw his captain under the bus. _So much for loyalty,_ she thought wryly, and without any real venom. Out loud, she said, "Still, I don't think I've ever heard that one before."

"You look like one," was what the man explained, the response so succinct that it could be nothing but truth.

Only it didn't made a lick of sense, and Leith could have sworn she felt her eye twitch. "Hah? What the fuck does that mean?"

Pitch shrugged, unsympathetic, eyeing the door that the other men fled to. "They're trying to talk some sense into the Captain. If you haven't noticed, he's about as subtle and delicate as a sledgehammer..."

"Yeah," Leith agreed, scratching her head.

"He's barely left your side since you lost consciousness," he informed her, his eyes flicking briefly to stare into her own. "You wouldn't happen to know why he's so fixated, would you?"

 _Well, shit…_ Leith pondered, her scowl softening minutely, turning into what she hoped would be a neutral expression. She'd noticed he was still wearing the suit, but to think that he'd hovered over her while she slept made her just a tad uncomfortable. Sure, Pitch might be implying something else, but Leith couldn't help the paranoid corner of her mind whispering that he knew. _Did Ace tell them that I knew his name?_ she wondered, shifting uncomfortably under the man's scrutinizing stare, looking away instead of into those intense dark eyes.

"...Not really," she lied, her throat tightening, "I don't even know him."

He nodded, apparently seeing that as an agreeable answer.

"He just about had a conniption when you woke up screaming in the middle of the night," Pitch said without preamble, as if he were just commenting on the weather. His expression was unreadable, leading Leith to figure that he was a hell of a Poker player.

Leith's lips nonetheless thinned at the news, her mouth running dry. She'd hoped that escaping the prison would mean a departure from her ever present nightmares. It felt like ages since she was able to get a full night's sleep without them popping up, searing the images into the back of her eyelids over and over again. It was why she hadn't slept in… in…

She wasn't sure how long.

The counter was reset to zero now, but that didn't change the fact that she still had night terrors. She may be _physically_ free now, but she was still a prisoner of her own mind.

Pitch gently lowered himself to sit next to her on the deck, his height still staggeringly tall despite his seated position. Leith looked away again, frowning at the horizon. "Does that happen often?" she heard him ask.

Still refusing to look at him and feeling just a bit rebellious, Leith growled, "What are you, my interrogator?"

A huff of either annoyance or amusement escaped him she wasn't sure which. "Close. I'm the ship's doctor."

"Ah," was all she could manage, a distinct feeling of discomfort rising within her. She picked at the bandages over her palms. _Crap._

They'd only allowed doctors near her when they'd pushed her a little too far, or they needed a quick patch job for the next arena fight. And they hadn't been particularly gentle… or kind.

Sure, Pitch was probably nothing like those assholes, but she didn't know for sure, and the reflex to gouge out his throat was an ever-present nagging that made her fingers twitch.

It wasn't too much of a stretch to understand that he'd been the one to wrap her injuries.

Leith still maintained her theory that Pitch could "sense" things like she could, because he kept his distance and left his hands where she could see them, only gesturing when necessary and keeping his movements slow and reserved. He seemed to know on some level that she was not to be fucked with.

"In any case," he forged on, heedless of her thoughts, "after we managed to calm you down, I gave you some fruit juice with vitamin and mineral supplements." His gaze roved over her form, calculating from head to toe. "I take it, considering your current fat ratio, that it's been awhile since you've last eaten?"

Blinking owlishly, Leith stared at the man like he'd grown a second head. _I hadn't remembered that at all,_ she thought, her breath hitching as her heart picked up in pace. _How did they calm me down? Why don't I remember waking up? Did they drug me?_ Out loud she simply gave a slow nod and quietly murmured, her voice shaky, "I… I don't remember when."

Pitch bobbed his head again and brought a hand up to scratch at his goatee. "That's fine. I'm sure I can come up with a diet regimen for that. You didn't puke up what I gave you either which is a bonus, though that doesn't mean you can just eat whatever you want." He gave her a look out of the corner of his eye, his expression serious. "You could die from shock if you eat too much after a fast."

Leith gulped and nodded, taking a deep breath in through her nose and out her mouth, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. _Stop panicking, you dumbass, you're fine. They haven't done anything to hurt you. Everything is fine._

"Are you alright?" Pitch questioned, and Leith darted her eyes over to see him giving her a measuring stare. Careful, like he was concerned she was going to snap. "I can leave if it would make you feel—"

"It's fine," Leith interrupted, lifting a hand to grip the fabric on her chest, willing herself to keep her voice even, "I just… don't have a good record with doctors."

She noticed his jaw tighten minutely, the muscle jumping before he relaxed. "I see," he murmured, an unidentifiable emotion coloring his tone. He stroked his beard again—clearly a nervous habit—and continued, "Then would you be opposed to me escorting you to the bath?"

Leith made a disgusted face and glanced down at her exposed skin, " _Right_ … No, I don't mind." And good lord, did she ever need it. Someone was going to have to wash the sheets _and_ pillowcase back in that room.

"Do you need help standing?" Pitch asked.

Grunting, she shook her head and used the wall as a support, her legs wobbling from the combination of pain and unsteady balance. She groaned as a wave of nausea hit, her hand slapping over her mouth when she gagged.

And she had to get used to this...

"Here. Hold my arm," the doctor said, presenting the limb for her to grasp, "You don't quite have your sea legs yet, so you'll need something to keep you grounded."

She scoffed, but took the offer anyway, finding that her dizziness did lessen as she leaned against him. The close proximity was uncomfortable, but she would much rather deal with this, than the prospect of barfing up her guts all over the main deck. She'd already made enough of a spectacle of herself without adding more fuel to the burning pyre.

No further dialogue passed between them as they crossed the open deck. Leith eyed the deep blue water over the side with trepidation the entire way, a foolish part of her brain insisting that it was going to reach up and grab her.

Somewhere, she could hear loud voices arguing amongst themselves. It wasn't too hard to guess that it was about her… thought maybe that was a bit narcissistic.

 _The world doesn't revolve around me,_ she mused, steeling herself when Pitch opened the door and the cavernous hall of the ship interior yawned like a wooden throat, _Just a coincidence..._

A moment of hesitance passed, before she stepped through the doorway. Pitch allowing her to lead.

It was significantly cooler inside than on deck, causing an involuntary shiver to run down Leith's spine. She had to remind herself that this was nothing like the cells as they passed by door after door. That the wooden panels weren't a facade. She was still on a ship. There weren't stone walls waiting for her outside.

Suffice to say, they couldn't have reached the bathroom fast enough.

Her chill didn't last long, as Pitch opened yet another door and the scent of steam and soap hit her nostrils, the ambient temperature of the room tepid in comparison to the corridor. It snapped her out of her depressive thoughts, dragging her back to reality.

The bathroom was large enough for four people, a fact that didn't go unnoticed by Leith when Pitch let her into the room. It made sense really, with a large crew, one would expect they would want to preserve water, and a communal bath was the perfect way to do just that. The shower had two heads, one with a hose extension and one without, and a bath was set up along the opposite wall, steam leaking through the lid.

 _I'm so going in that,_ she thought, staring at the large tub longingly. It looked like it could fit two or even three people.

"The men worked together to get you some clothes," Pitch stated, motioning to the pile on the counter next to the sink, distracting Leith from her potentially inappropriate fantasies involving the bathtub. "We don't have much in the way of feminine wear, so you'll have to make due with some of Mao's, since he's the one who donated the most."

"Mao?" she asked.

"He was on deck with the others," Pitch explained, motioning his hand down in a measuring height. "He's only a little bit taller than you. Wears a turban."

"Ah," she said lamely, looking away and clearing her throat, shifting from foot to foot uneasily. That was the guy she nearly ran over in her… moment of panic. She wasn't really proud of that.

"We got you a variety, so you can pick whatever combination you want," he informed her, as she strode over to investigate the impressive pile.

They'd really outdone themselves. The sheer amount of clothing was almost staggering and Leith had to wonder how much clothing a group of nine grown men had between them if they could just freely offload it to some stranger.

 _That, and how often do they do laundry?_ Leith wondered, lifting up a pair of pants to inspect them for worthiness, _And where?_ Though if the sizable pile Ace was sprawled out in was any indication, then she got the feeling it wasn't terribly often. Unless that was just him...

She wrinkled her nose at the pants, they were so… _poofy._

"Something wrong?" she heard Pitch mutter.

"I'm not much of a pants fan," Leith mumbled in reply, setting the article aside to snatch up something else. She cooed at the ruffles, wondering just who on the crew wore _this._

A thoughtful hum reached her ears as she dissected the clothing, flipping through them with a trained eye. "You'd prefer skirts?"

"Nah," she grunted, turning around to give him a measuring glance, her expression turning amused.

He gave her a disapproving frown in turn, and crossed his arms with a roll of his eyes. "...What do you prefer?"

"Shorts or nothing."

If possible, his scowl deepened and Leith was distinctly reminded of a protective older brother that just heard his little sister liked kissing boys. With _tongue_. It was both parts endearing and hilarious. "As your doctor and as a concerned member of society on a crew consisting entirely of _men_ … I'd advise you to wear the pants," Pitch informed, his speech sounding recited, if a bit tight-lipped.

Leith had to wonder how many times he had to say variations of that sentence.

"And if I don't?" Leith challenged with a grin.

"Do I look like your mother?" he scoffed, unimpressed.

"Not really. Too much beard," she quipped back.

Pitch snorted in amusement and Leith couldn't help but smile in return, it was the first time she got a reaction out of him that wasn't mute disapproval or neutrality. It wasn't much of an icebreaker, but it would work for now. "If you need me, just shout, I'll be standing guard out in the hall to make sure nobody comes in by 'mistake,'" he muttered, adding in finger quotes at the end.

"I appreciate it," Leith murmured and when the man turned to leave she called out, "Oh and Pitch?"

"Hm?"

"Thanks." And she meant it.

The man's expression softened. He gave a curt nod before ducking out, letting the door close with a soft click.

Leith let out a breath, looking down at herself in trepidation. The clothes she'd pilfered off the dead guard clung to her like a second skin in the humidity, and she was more than happy to strip them off. She grimaced as the stiff clothing chafed against some of her scabs, but she ignored the pain. The prospect of getting clean was too much of a siren's call to ignore.

She'd probably ask Ace to burn them later.

Her bandages came next, though Leith imagined the doctor might not approve. She didn't want to leave any area unscrubbed, as this was as much a spiritual cleansing as it was a physical one. She didn't want to leave one scrap of filth behind.

And if she had to bleed to do that, she was more than happy to.

The squeak of the faucet was the most beautiful thing, because the moment that came after was literally heaven.

Water. Warm, blessed water poured over her shoulders, the showerhead squealing from the built up pressure. Leith groaned, mumbling to herself as she let it wash over her scalp, "I take back what I said about too much water… Water is the best. I'll never insult you again..."

If there was ever a time to worship something, it was in this moment. Leith would gladly start a cult if it meant she could hold on to this feeling.

Hands pressed into the wall, Leith watched the water darken and swirl a path into the drain, the mix of muddy brown and yellow making a hypnotic display. The stench was noxious, as the liquid agitated old layers of filth and rotten blood, mixing into a rank concoction that made her want to gag.

Leith spent at least a minute running her hands over her body and through her hair before she even _touched_ the soap. Wanting to make sure that every inch of her was soaked through before the ritual cleansing began.

Once she did however, she attacked her flesh with a ferocity, her wounds protesting the rough treatment even as the suds accumulated into a thick film, some places stained pink as she split open scabbed skin. The scrubbing of her back was by far the worst part of the ordeal, as she had to use a scrub brush to be certain the skin was cleared. The bristles stabbed into multiple lacerations, and by the time she was finished, Leith was shaking. Battling with dark memories.

The heat washed it all away.

Her hair was a mess and she had to resort to brushing and even tearing out some of the tangles and snarls in the mass to get everything out. She was glad someone on the crew had long hair and knew how to take care of it, because the bottle of conditioner was a godsend.

By the time she was finished, the water had started to run cold and she'd gone two more circuits of scrubbing, just in case. Her skin was pink and raw from her efforts, and her scalp stung something awful.

But she was _clean_.

Leith wrapped herself in a towel so large and fluffy that she was nearly swallowed in it, her head just barely poking out of the mass. It was meant for a larger person, but at this point she didn't care. It was safe and warm.

Plus she was waiting a bit, letting her body rest before going for a dip in the bath. She took some sips of water from the tap to rehydrate herself.

And ogled her appearance.

She looked _awful_.

It'd been a long time since Leith had seen her reflection, but the image she had of herself then certainly didn't match up with what she was seeing now. Her face was gaunt, the lines of her cheekbones more pronounced than she'd ever seen, her eyes accented with dark, bruised flesh that made her look like a zombie. Her skin was tight and pale from lack of sunlight, lips barely retaining any healthy color, making it seem like she applied too much flesh-colored lipstick. A horizontal scar, one that she didn't remember getting, arced over the bridge of her nose and extended over her left cheek, underlining her eye.

She didn't look a thing like herself.

 _Especially not with this mop I got going on,_ she pondered, grabbing a handful of her hair in a claw-like grasp.

White strands, now slightly greyed from dampness, slid with only a single snag through her fingers.

It was still weird to her, no matter how much time passed.

Her eyebrows and everything else were still brown, only the hair on her scalp had changed. She wasn't certain as to why, the only thing coming to mind being the stress of dimensional travel. Marie Antoinette Syndrome, perhaps.

 _But if that were the case,_ Leith mused, smoothing over some of the damaged ends. She needed a haircut. _Then it would have started at the roots… been gradual._

That had not been the case here, and Leith hadn't exactly had the luxury to ponder it.

"I could just shrug it off as anime weirdness, but…" Leith trailed off, pausing, then deposited her face into her hands, "I can't believe I'm contemplating this seriously."

Good lord, she was never going to get over this.

Turning on her heel, she strode to the bath, intent on revisiting this conundrum later. _Much_ later. Preferably while drunk.

And by the heavens, did she want a stiff drink. It was doubtful that Pitch would let her, though. He _was_ the ship's doctor after all.

She hefted aside the bath lid with a grunt, straining on the balls of her feet to hoist the wooden slab aside. The water was still steaming with enticing heat, and Leith nearly stumbled as she attempted to hike her leg over the lip of the tub. _Need to get a stool in here if I don't want to gamble with death every time I want to take a soak,_ she thought wryly, giving a chuckle at her own dark joke, _Dying from slipping in the bathroom… What a way to go._

She sucked in a breath as her feet touched the water, it was far warmer than she was expecting. Almost blisteringly hot. Slowly, she sank her legs into the tub, allowing her limbs a moment to get used to the heat.

Leith was just about to start unwinding her towel, when a loud thumping noise and muted yelling interrupted her, making her clutch the cloth tightly to herself.

It sounded like Ace.

The resounding _stomp, stomp, stomp_ of booted feet down the corridor made her tense and grab the nearest bottle of… something. She wasn't sure what it was, but the moment he opened that door he was going to get a face full of it.

Only for that to not happen.

"Pitch! Have you see— _WAAH_!" Ace's voice became faint and the sound of something heavy thudded down the hall, bouncing a couple of times. Distantly, there was a shout of, "What the hell?!"

"No entering the bathroom while a woman's bathing, Captain. It's bad for your health," Pitch answered with droll tone, his voice just loud enough to carry.

Leith snorted, the sounds of a scuffle continuing until it went beyond her range of hearing.

Then she stared at the bottle in her hand.

She wasn't ashamed to admit she 'oohed' aloud at the pasted on label, nor the instructions listed on the side, happily grabbing the bottle of salts nearby and putting in the allotted amount. It was a very good thing then that Ace hadn't made it past her self-proclaimed guard dog, wasting such a treasure would have been tantamount to sin. Leith didn't know whose idea it was to get essential oils and bath salts, but she wasn't going to judge or complain.

The aromatic scent of lavender filled the air and Leith was practically wiggling with excitement by the time she safely discarded her towel on the nearest rack and sank into the water, hissing as the heat stung. "I change my mind, _this_ is heaven," she groaned, sinking deeper into the pool.

And compared to her, it practically _was_ a pool, it was the largest damn tub she'd ever seen.

Sweet-smelling water nearly up to her chin, Leith allowed herself to relax, letting out a sigh that had the water surface rippling.

All was quiet, the only prevailing sound being the steady drip of the faucet.

It was too quiet.

Her eyes started to slide shut...

A resounding knock startled Leith out of her trance and she jerked in response, the water sloshing about and getting into her nose. Sputtering, she gave the door a critical glance, wiping her face and blinking the water out of her eyes. "Who is it?" she croaked.

"It's me again," Pitch called, "I have your new bandages."

Leith grumbled, having wanted to soak just a bit longer. Though if she was falling asleep, maybe that wasn't such a good idea…

"Come in, then," she said reluctantly, sinking a little bit further into the water, and not really out of embarrassment. She'd long become used to being nude in front of strangers; the nobles hadn't really given her much choice in that regard—it was more steeling herself for a reaction. Leith knew her appearance was… off-putting.

Being able to count someone's ribs was never a sanguine experience.

Pitch entered the bathroom without much ceremony, placing a couple of medical kits on the counter. When he turned to address her, he paused, blinking at the half of her face he could see as she glowered at him from over the lip of the tub.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his lips for some reason fighting a smile.

"It's warm. You interrupted," was her reply.

"My sincerest apologies," Pitch confessed, not sounding sincere in the least, hooking his foot under the nearest stool and whipping it in front of him with a screech. "But I can't in good consciousness allow a crewmate— _temporary_ as they may be," he added hastily, before she could finish interrupting him, mouth already opened to retort. He flashed her a knowing look as he continued, "To walk around without proper care for their injuries."

Leith muttered under her breath.

"I will venture to tell you all of my actions and their purpose, if you wish," Pitch added.

"Oh, for the love of— _Fine!_ " Leith growled, standing up, the water splashing loudly about her.

Pitch was quick to about face, his stance in a relaxed slouch. He snorted out a laugh. "Are you always so cavalier about your nudity?"

"What's there to see?" she snarked, ungracefully flopping over the side of the tub and grabbing her towel once her feet touched the floor, wrapping it about herself like a human burrito, "I'm too thin to be attractive to anyone, unless they're into mummified corpses."

"Your emaciation is not that extreme," Pitch informed her, only turning around once she sat on the stool with a huff. She really wanted to know how he did that. It was like he had eyes in the back of his head. "You still have some muscle mass."

"Tch, _some_ ," Leith repeated with a scoff, eyeing him as he walked over to the medkits behind her, "You offering something here, Doc?"

"Don't call me that," he snapped just a bit too quickly, bringing back a roll of bandages and some antiseptic cream. In a lighter tone he said, "Also, no, I'm not. You remind me too much of my little sister and I'm not a fucking creep."

It was Leith's turn to snort out a laugh, and instantly she felt better about the entire situation.

She allowed the towel to slip over her shoulders, exposing her back to him and heard a sharp intake of breath as a result. Pitch spoke, his voice tinged with concern, "I'm going to touch your shoulder and back alright?" At her nod, a large palm pressed into her shoulder blade, making her flinch despite already being warned. He hesitated, but when she made no moves to pull away or tell him off he gently moved aside the hair blocking his view.

His tongue made a clicking noise.

"That bad, huh?" she asked, voice rough. Leith had expected it really, it was inevitable that her skin would be marred by her former master's oh-so-delicate attentions. Maybe one part of her was hopeful that it wouldn't be so bad, that her time spent in that hell wouldn't leave its mark. But just like the brand on her shoulder, she was stamped with evidence to her sins, unclean in the eyes of the world.

She hunched her shoulders.

"How old are these?" Pitch asked, his voice soft. Leith heard him rustling with something and then the squelch of a tube as he prepared what she assumed to be an antiseptic pad. Her theory was confirmed when he gently dabbed at her back, the medicine stinging.

"Not sure," she admitted, trying and failing to relax under his ministrations, closing her eyes as she winced. "It…was hard to judge the time where I was held… They put me in isolation."

Pitch made a noncommittal hum, poking and prodding at various points on her back, judging her reactions to see if there was any unusual pain. "Did they treat it after?"

"Not that I'm aware…"

The man grunted, and Leith couldn't tell if he was displeased with her answer or not. There was more rustling before Pitch started placing damp patches on her back, he didn't have to tell her to keep still as he taped each one down with an expert hand.

"Will it scar badly?" Leith wondered, and it took her a moment to realize she said it aloud. Still, she waited for his answer with uncharacteristic nervousness, the prospect of her skin being permanently damaged with such a vile practice was a disheartening thought.

Pitch growled, and Leith was struck by the idea that his Doberman mask back in the city was more than appropriate. "I can get some cream that will help smooth over the scar tissue, but they won't vanish completely… Probably never will."

Leith sighed. "Well, I guess it was worth a shot…"

"Fucking scum," he spit, arms drawing back so he could be appropriately irate without hurting her, his arms flailing as he ranted, "I know I shouldn't be surprised by this point but…" Here, he cursed vehemently, before taking in a calming breath through his nose and continued to dab at her skin, his touch still gentle. "Every damn time I think I've seen it all, they show me a new angle."

"I take it you've have experience with nobles?" Leith asked dryly, knowing that such an obvious question was pointless, but feeling the need to fill the silence.

"Everyone does in some capacity," Pitch grumbled, and for a moment Leith wanted to turn around so she could see the emotion there. His words spoke of a past pain, one that was very close to his heart.

Instead, her lip wobbled and she hunched further into herself, hiding her face in her hair. "I guess it's good to know I have some allies then," she whispered, her voice cracking.

"I'm sorry we couldn't have gotten there sooner," he said sincerely, placing his hand on her shoulder and giving it a light squeeze.

"Pitch…" Leith said, her tone admonishing, "You don't even know me."

"Doesn't take knowing a person to sympathize," he murmured by way of argument, holding down on a point along the middle of her back and then offering her a roll of gauze over her shoulder, directing her on where it should be wrapped before grabbing a hold of it again, "I'd have to be a right bastard if I didn't."

She couldn't argue with that.

A moment of silence passed between them, broken only by Pitch's curt instructions. It was an amiable calm however, the two having come to an understanding that each needed to mull over their thoughts.

Then the bathroom _lurched._

Leith shrieked, her arms pinwheeling about in an attempt to catch purchase as the entire ship tilted at a startling thirty degree angle. She grunted as her back struck hard against Pitch's torso, the both of them slamming into the wall closest to the door.

"What the fuck is that?!" she barked, eyes wide. She still had a grip on her towel, but was currently less concerned with maintaining what little of her modesty remained and more focused on why it sounded like the ship was being buffeted about like a soccer ball.

Pitch had a grip on her shoulders, keeping her balanced as the floor righted itself. His hands tightened their grasp as he muttered, "If I had to take a guess—"

The sound that roared from the ship exterior could only be described as an unholy union between a rusty screen door and the bellowing of a lion harassing a distressed elephant. Turn all of that up to a volume equivalent to a fighter jet going mach speed and the result was the noise of a creature as vast and terrifying as Leith had only seen in movie theaters.

"—A Sea King," he finished dryly, releasing a heavy sigh.

"You gotta be shitting me," Leith said weakly, a full body shiver wracking her form. Because of course. Of course it had to happen like this. Her luck was utter garbage. "Of all times, why did it decide to attack when I'm buck-ass naked?" she grouched.

Pitch shot her a wry glance, then pulled her towel into a more secure position, shrouding her nudity. "There are worse situations. I can guarantee that," he said, guiding her to vertical bar along the wall and using a stray sash from the clothes pile to tie it around her torso, anchoring her to the post before she could protest, "Stay here."

"Wha—" A resounding _thoom_ of cannonfire cut her off, and Leith slapped her hands over her ears at the sound, the floor vibrating under her feet.

"I'm heading above to see if we can kill the beast quickly," he informed her in a louder voice, a futile attempt to combat the raging cacophony outside. Taking quick strides to the door, he opened it before whipping about and brandishing a finger at her. "Stay. Here."

"What are you suggesting I'd even do," she snarked sardonically, motioning to herself with a raised brow, "seduce it with my nubile young looks?"

He gave an actual chuckle at that before making a quick exit, the door shutting just a little more harshly behind him in his haste this time.

Leith huffed and just tried to make herself comfortable.

xXx

It wasn't until after the chaotic screeching, shouts, and explosions (of both cannons and Ace) stopped for a good couple of minutes, that Leith felt it was safe enough to undo her impromptu safety harness. Pitch hadn't returned yet and the bathroom was too quiet for her to want to linger any longer.

 _I'm becoming clingy,_ she noted, flipping through clothing articles and setting aside sets so she could create some sort of wardrobe.

Leith dressed as quickly as she could, accepting Mao's gift of puffy pants despite her misgivings on the matter and to just try them out for the hell of it. She felt like a genie and didn't really know how to feel about that.

Since there were a lack of women's undergarments, she just settled on wearing a loose shirt, one with sleeves long enough to cover the brand on her shoulder. She didn't want _that_ thing seeing the light of day if she could help it.

Fingers brushing through her still somewhat damp and frizzy locks, Leith poised her hands on her hips and actually took a look at herself. "Almost presentable," she concluded to her reflection with a nod, "Now, if you didn't look like an extra from _The Walking Dead_ , maybe you won't scare young children on sight."

She stared at the daunting pile of clothes and the wardrobe sets.

"Someone else will get those…" she muttered dryly and turned on her heel. Leith hadn't the slightest clue on where she would be staying on the ship and didn't want to haul about a precarious stack on an unsteady ship while also being unseaworthy. It was a comedy act waiting to happen, so she chose to let it be someone else's problem.

She walked like a drunken hobo enough as it was, she didn't need to add more fuel.

Her venture down the corridor was an interesting combination of sliding along the wall like a burglar and crouching crab-walks, her hand always braced along some sort of surface to keep balance. She sweated nervously as the hull gave a series of groans, and while the ship was no longer tilting as precariously as before, that didn't mean she felt completely safe from the looming deep outside.

Leith was only all too happy to reach the exit and get some fresh air.

What greeted her was a sight she never thought she'd witness in her life.

A hulking, looping mass of scales and charred black flesh loomed garishly next to the ship, a single red eye staring vacantly at the source of its demise. The Sea King was colossal, all teeth, sinew, and untamed might. Twin sails of leathery spines crowned its great head, arcing over and down the curve of its spine, growing smaller the further it travelled to the tail. What scales that had been left untouched by cannon fire and flame, shimmered with an iridescence akin to beetle shells.

It was by far the most formidable, beautiful, and majestically terrifying thing she'd ever seen.

 _Jurassic Park_ had nothing on this thing.

She gulped.

A piercing whistle caught her attention, and Leith whirled from her gobsmacked staring contest with the heaping corpse to locate the source. Her eyes caught Pitch, waving her over from his place next to the central mast and she grimaced at the distance.

He was clearly trying to get her to work on her sea legs already. _Balls._

Interestingly, no one else was on deck, so it made the trek a little less embarrassing since she didn't have an audience. Which is why the first words out of her mouth when she finally stumbled even with the doctor were, "Where is everyone?"

"Carving up our newest source of protein," he stated, pointing a meaningful finger through his crossed arms at the monstrosity.

Leith blinked, whipping her head to critically eye the imposing hulk, trying to pick out the ant-like figures working on the body. One thing was certain, they were going to have a rich dinner that only needed a small amount of preparation thanks to Ace's Devil Fruit.

She wrinkled her nose when she remembered Pitch's earlier statement, about not eating too much too early. Leith still didn't remember when her last meal had been and even with the small cup that the doctor said he gave her when she was half conscious, she didn't feel satisfied in the least.

Her stomach growled loudly.

Pitch brandished something in her face. "Here, eat this."

Eyeing package suspiciously, Leith sniffed it instead of taking it out of his hand. She smelled something vaguely… sweet. "What is it?"

"Fruit leather," he stated, peeling back the waxy paper to reveal a somewhat sticky, gelatin-like substance. It reminded Leith of a darkly colored Fruit Roll-up—only square and thicker. "Now that you're conscious you need to eat six small meals a day, to get your stomach used to receiving food again without rejecting it," Pitch said, waving the little packet back and forth, only to huff in amusement as Leith's eyes followed its path.

Swiping the snack away, Leith gave a gruff, "Gimme that," before her eyes nearly crossed to inspect the thing closer. She narrowed her eyes at him, even as she nibbled a corner. "Why'd you just have this in your pocket?"

Pitch's eyebrows rose. "I was going to bring it to you, but the crew needed me to stay here." Then he grinned, his arms crossing again. "I also don't have pockets."

Leith scowled, but didn't stop eating her prize, hunching over it like a jealous squirrel. She wouldn't stop for the world even if he informed her he kept it in his underwear; she was _that_ hungry.

"We're back!" a raucous voice announced, and both of them turned to hear the grunts and strained groans of ropes winding through pulleys as a landing vessel was hoisted even with the deck, laden heavily with brown packages and the rest of the men.

The bearded guy—whose name she still didn't know, she really needed to fix that—grinned widely and leapt onto a deck with a limberness that was surprising considering his rotund shape. Then again, he was a pirate and was used to heavy labor, so she guessed he had a wrestler's body, heavy muscle under a layer of fat.

"Oh! You're looking better already!" the man exclaimed, and Leith figured he was only trying to be nice, because she was sure she still looked like hell. "Hope my leather recipe is to your liking," he said, motioning to the fruity snack she was busy gnawing on like a piece of taffy, then he added in a more conspiratorial tone, "I got quite a store of those that I hid away from the Captain so he doesn't eat them all. Man's a bottomless pit..."

Blinking at the abrupt word vomit, Leith momentarily ceased her attempts to chew the fruit leather into submission, the tangy flavor still dancing upon her tongue. "You made this?" she asked, shooting a curious glance as the other men busied themselves with carrying the packages to what she assumed to be the larder.

Ace was standing nearby like a useless lump, drooling over the pile.

"Damn straight!" he crowed, waddling over to throw out a meaty palm in a handshake. A gesture that Leith hesitantly took and immediately regretted when he nearly tore her arm from its socket from his furious pumping. "I'm the ship's cook! Everyone calls me Slapjack!"

"Don't tear her arm off, Slaps," Pitch admonished, and quite effectively disproving the other man's statement, stopping the human jackhammer dead with a firm hand.

"Whoops, sorry, ma'am!" Slapjack laughed with a sheepish grin, rubbing the back of his head. "Don't know my own strength…"

"It's fine," Leith grumbled, shaking out her hand and wincing as she rolled her shoulder. _Christ on a cracker, does everyone on this ship have arms like hydraulic pistons?_ she griped internally, while out loud she asked, "'Everyone calls you?' As in that isn't your actual name?"

He grimaced at that. "Ehh, _yeah_ … The orphanage on my home island wasn't terribly creative with their names and called every fifth boy or so 'Jack.' Got kinda tired of being confused with every other dumbass around, so I started introducing myself that way."

Leith was about to make some sort of witty retort but was cut off spectacularly by a bellowing, "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HAIR?!"

Everyone in the vicinity turned to stare at Ace, who seemed to be a bit late on the upkeep of their newest member.

To his credit, he flushed at the attention, shuffling from foot to foot like a nervous buzzard from where he was perched along the ship's railing. "I uh…" He coughed, clearing his throat nervously before continuing, "I didn't mean to say that so loud… But seriously," Ace insisted, pointing right at her with a baffled expression, "Your hair—

"If you so much as even question if the carpet matches the drapes, I'm going to crush your balls under my heel," Leith interrupted with a deadpan stare.

Pitch made a startled choke that sounded suspiciously like laughter. While Slapjack didn't even bother to cover his mirth and howled loudly, his entire body shaking with the effort.

Ace just looked confused and understandably wary. Smart man. "I err… _What_?" he squeaked, skittering further along the rail to put some distance between them, just in case she decided to make due on her promise of pain. "I just wanted to ask why your hair is white, not… Whatever _that_ means."

 _Damn it all to hell, who raised this boy?_ Leith pondered rhetorically, knowing full well who exactly had a hand in raising him and cursing them all to hell and back. Externally, she just pinched her brow and muttered, " _Nevermind_ … my wit is wasted on you."

She didn't even _want_ to try answering that question.

Pitch lay a hand on her shoulder, catching her attention. "Let's get your sleeping arrangements in order," he muttered, clearly having more sense to divert the conversation from a potentially sensitive topic than his captain, "Then I need to do a series of tests to check your health."

Leith groaned. _This is going to be a long day._

* * *

 **A/N:** Leith meet Crew. Crew meet Spoons.

If you want to shoot me an ask or just want to bounce around some fun ideas you can send me a message on my tumblr: **_fanfiction-by-abalisk . tumblr . com_** (without spaces of course) and I will answer as best as I can! I have fan art from my own work and for other people's fics over there too if you wish to peruse.

And as always, much loves and talk to you next time~


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